Stumbling on truth upon a mountain top

   The beauty of the northern range in Trinidad is breathtaking! Like wisdom, it catches a person unaware until later.   A month ago, I read a description of Italo Svevo, a Jewish-Italian writer of the 19th century: "an eccentric who barely knew himself and yet stumbled on eternal truths." I like that imagery: "stumbling on truth." In our lives we sometimes fail to recognize nature's splendor. How many countless times have I seen this part of my homeland and yet, did not see! In similar fashion, we sometimes stumble on truth, not knowing what we have encountered. Many years later, we see differently.
   Augustine is a great example, born in the 4th century, author of "The Confessions" who tells us of his struggles to find peace and God. He himself describes God as "Ancient Beauty."
His life reads like a movie. He excelled in school when he wanted to. He went with the bad crowd of his time and got into
many worthless activities. He lived with a mistress who bore him a child. He became a brilliant speech teacher in Rome and then, a professor in Milan. His persistent mother, Monica, followed him to these places pleading with him to return to the Christian faith. The short end of the story is Augustine finally found himself, was baptized, made a Bishop and eventually, became a saint! His conversion is what I liken to as a stumbling upon Beauty. He himself writing in his memoirs describes how while praying to be free of his sinful ways, he heard a child's voice:    
"Take up and read."
The text was Romans 13, 13f which told him to give up his life of sin. Italo Svevo also gave voice to his own foibles, writing his masterpiece: "The Confessions of Zeno" recently republished as
"Zeno's Conscience," a tender devastating hilarious portrait of the modern person's absurd delusions. Eternal truths don't automatically come to all of us. I think this is why the search for meaning and purpose seems like part of our DNA. We have to rediscover something on our own what such great men and women have done over the ages. The ancients at one time called it "puritas cordis," literally purity of heart or clean of heart. For Augustine, a man or woman had to live purely in order to possess the clean spirit capable of possessing God. Lust for him was the greatest defilement blocking the way to happiness.
   I believe there are moments when we stumble on such happiness and we should move on it. There is a curious incident in the life of Jesus when two disciples were following him. He asks: "what are you looking for?" They responded: "where do you live?" Jesus replies: "Come and see!" Like the ancients, we modern seekers also stumble. To seek and to find is the prerogative of all. Like Italo Svevo, we will stumble on eternal truths and discover Augustine's "Ancient Beauty where our hearts will find rest."
   First, we stumble and see!