AUGUSTINE REDUX: JAMES K. A. SMITH RETREAT

Is a retreat defined along a Saturday morning plant-walk when the group discovers an extremely rare instance of sage growing in the wild? Is it later that same morning when the musicians unplug and step towards the group to sing, whisper-like, and everyone leans in? Or is it when, late afternoon in the gallery, an artist shares his recently completed installation, and the sun shining through the windows seems to animate tape and stencils?

Of course, it could have actually been the speaker and his personal reflections on St. Augustine’s Confessions. Something about the way he spoke of this ancient friend of his made us all want to know Augustine (and Augustine’s God) for ourselves.

Probably the retreat is defined as the total of all of these, and countless other encounters, large and small, known and unknown, that occur over the course of a long weekend spent in the Canyon.