When the Way Finds You
John Merritt - The amphitheater held its breath. Dust motes turned slow circles in the afternoon light, each one catching gold before disappearing. Augustine stood before them—merchants and scholars, sinners and seekers, the newly baptized still damp from the font. His voice carried through the stone space, not loud but certain.
"Listen first," he said, "to what all philosophers hold in common."
The crowd shifted. Some leaned forward. A merchant in the back crossed his arms, waiting to be convinced.
"Through study and research, through discussion and the hard work of living, they sought one thing only." Augustine paused. The silence was a question mark. "A happy life. This alone drove their inquiry."
A murmur of recognition. Yes, they knew this hunger.
"But," and here his voice softened, became almost tender, "I think we share this with them. If I asked why you believed in Christ, why you became Christians, what would you answer?"
A woman near the front spoke without thinking. "For happiness." Others nodded. The truth was too obvious to hide.
"Then the question becomes sharper," Augustine said. "Where do we find this thing we all desire? What makes us different?" He looked out over the assembly. "For I believe—I know with certainty—that all people aspire to happiness. All. Not just philosophers and Christians. Good and bad alike. Every thief and every saint."
The merchant in the back uncrossed his arms.
"The good are good precisely because they desire happiness rightly," Augustine continued. "But what of the wicked? Do they not also seek it?"
He let the question hang, let it work on them.
"Suppose I could question every thief alone, separated from the righteous. 'Why do you steal?' I ask. 'To have what I lack,' he answers. 'Why do you want what you lack?' 'Because it is misery not to have.'"
Augustine's hands opened, palms up. The gesture was an offering, an explanation.
"He seeks happiness by possessing. But here is his error, his impudence: being evil, he wants to be happy. For happiness is good—good for everyone. He desires good but does evil. Can you see the madness? He wants the reward of the good while refusing the work of goodness."
A young man spoke up, his voice uncertain. "But surely if having makes him happy—"
"God commands the work and promises the reward," Augustine said, and now his voice had iron in it. "'Do this and you will receive that.' But the wicked man says, 'I will not be happy unless I do evil.' It is like saying, 'I will not achieve good unless I am evil.'"
Someone laughed—short, bitter. Recognition.
"Do you not see?" Augustine asked. "Good and evil exclude each other. You want good but do evil? Then you are running in the opposite direction. When will you arrive?"
The amphitheater was completely still now. Even the dust had stopped its turning.
Augustine's voice grew quieter, more intimate. "What does the truly happy person want? Not to be deceived. Not to die. Not to suffer. Does he want to be hungrier so he can eat more?" A few smiled. "No. For it is better not to be hungry at all."
"The soul hates deception," he continued. "You can see this in how we pity those who laugh from madness. Given the choice between laughter or tears, we choose laughter. Given the choice between deception or truth—everyone chooses truth."
He paused, let them feel it.
"But unsurpassable truth is so superior that a sane person would rather cry in truth than laugh in delusion. In that homeland we seek, there will be truth without tears. Genuine laughter. Enjoyment without end, because there will be life."
The woman who had spoken earlier leaned forward. "How do we reach it?"
Augustine smiled. The smile held something—memory, perhaps. Pain transformed.
"This is the question, is it not? Philosophers built paths of error. Each said, 'This way.' Others said, 'No, that way.' The way was hidden from them."
He was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice carried the weight of personal testimony.
"The way was hidden from them because God resists the proud. It would be hidden from us too, if it had not come to us."
The amphitheater seemed to expand, to hold more than stone and bodies. The light through the high windows had changed, grown softer.
"The Lord said, 'I am the way.'" Augustine spoke the words as if tasting them, as if they were new. "Lazy traveler, you did not want to reach the way. So the way came to you."
Someone drew a sharp breath. Understanding arriving like an arrow.
"You were looking for where to go—'I am the way.' You were looking for where to arrive—'I am the truth and the life.' You will not end in error if you go to him through him."
Augustine looked out over them all—the merchants and mothers, the scholars and sinners, the seekers and the already-found.
"This is the doctrine of Christians," he said. "Not to be compared with philosophy. Not the filth of pleasure-seekers. Not the pride of self-made men. Something simpler. Something that happened to me."
The past tense carried everything—the years of searching, the brilliant reasoning that led nowhere, the success that left him empty.
"I sought," he said simply. "I strove. I worked hard. But everything is simpler than we imagine. Jesus came to me. And with Him, I found I had enough. He was enough."
The light was failing now. The day bending toward evening. But no one moved. They sat in the gathering dark, holding what had been given.
Not an argument won but a presence recognized. Not a path described but a companion encountered. The way that came looking for those who were lost, who were tired of running in the wrong direction, who were ready—finally, achingly ready—to be found.
The amphitheater emptied slowly. Voices murmured in the dusk. But the question remained alive in them, working like yeast in dough.
What makes us happy?
Not an answer to memorize but a person to meet. Not a destination to reach but a presence already here, already speaking, already saying:
I am the way.
This reflection draws from Augustine's Discourse 150, where the Bishop of Hippo explores the universal human desire for happiness and the distinctive Christian claim—that Christ himself is both the path and the destination we seek. It is reinterpreted and narrated using fiction writing techniques to convey real-life eevnts. This method employs immersive scene-setting, vivid descriptions, realistic dialogue, and character development to make the story emotionally engaging and novel-like, while still maintaining factual accuracy and integrity.