Confessions

Yesterday I found the GREATEST PLACE EVER.

Its name is Couth Buzzard

It is 0.8 miles down the street from my church's new building

And guess what it is?

So guess?

It's a...

A COMBINATION USED BOOKSTORE AND COFFEESHOP!

I TOLD YOU, GREATEST PLACE EVER!

AND THEY HAVE VEGAN COOKIES!

And for $6, you can get a small coffee in a cute mug, a vegan cookie and a lightly worn copy of The Confessions of St. Augustine!

And if you take an inordinate amount of time deciding what you want, and you tell the man behind the counter, you're thinking, he will say, "Great! Thinking is encouraged in a bookstore!"

SO SO SO SO SO SO GREAT

Further, I haven't read Confessions since my freshman year of college and it is also amazing!

In case you didn't know, here's the premise: Augustine was a man who came to Christ at age 32. This book is a repentance of his sins, and his recollection goes far and deep. He includes things like stealing pears as a child and lusts in his teens.

"You are unchangeable and yet you change all things...You are ever active, yet always at rest...You welcome all who come to you, though you never lost them...you release our debts, but you lose nothing thereby" 

"Why do I mean so much to you, that you should command me to love you?"

"You smite that you may heal, and you kill us so that we may not die away from you" 

"Nothing deserves to be despised more than vice, yet I gave in more and more to vice simply in order not to be despised" 

"Let me still confess my sins to you for your honor and glory" 

This last one was really striking to me - repentance is not primarily for us, it's for God! It's for His name to be honored and lifted high, after we have profaned it!

Now unless you also live in Seattle, I doubt you can find as cool of a place as I did to pick up a copy, but you could try.