Or, an open reflection on busted knees, Literature Humanities, and Augustine’s ghost.

My Literature Humanities professor and I both walked into our first class of the spring bearing a busted knee, the ultimate symbol of a winter break well-lived. Although I was mostly functional, my LitHum teacher soon had to move our class to the history department conference room in Fayerweather, as our original spot in Hamilton Hall required too much walking for her knee.

One boast of our new classroom was its long, sleek table, which our entire class can gather around comfortably. A con, much to my professor’s irritation, was the heater’s persistent banging. During our first week back, said heater emitted a machine-like thrashing with a passion worthy of Augustine’s Confessions, which we were currently discussing in class. The banging even kicked up a notch once my professor mentioned Augustine’s constant bemoaning of his lust, and with a chuckle, she joked that perhaps Augustine’s heater-bound ghost was trying to stop us from discussing the carnal imagination he had combated for so long. Laughter rippled briefly across the classroom, but we soon got on with our discussion. Looking back now, however, I find a strange parallel between the physical struggles of a broken knee and Augustine’s grappling with his lust.

A damaged knee may seem to be an entirely material challenge at first wince. Yet there is something oddly spiritual about being forced to slow down, to constrain the motions of your swinging legs to a dragging shuffle. As I ambled around campus, forced to cut back from the New Yorker power-stroll I used to embody with pride, I was forced to reckon with my own dependence on the simple mechanics of a well-oiled joint, one that can move without pain. I realized that I needed an infinite number of bodily processes to work in complex harmony just to roll out of bed each morning—all of which I was used to taking for granted. Like how Augustine desired the bodies of his lovers to fulfill his relational hunger, I began longing for my old body, the one with a knee that could bear my physical weight, as well as my own craving to find purpose in the fast-paced world of Columbia. In each case, the physical represented an intimately spiritual need.

All to say—it may not have actually been Augustine’s ghost banging around in the heater that day, yet his cautionary protests against desiring without bounds deserve reflection all the same.

Confessions via Bwarchives