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What do I want? What is the cause of this restlessness in my soul? Why don't I feel at home even in my own home, even in my own self? Who am I? At the core of James K. A. Smith's book "On the Road with Saint Augustine" sits Saint Augustine's answer in his Confessions, "you have made us for yourself, of Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in you." Put succinctly in this one quote, Augustine of Hippo articulates the restlessness of his own heart, the restlessness that sends him from his birthplace in North Africa to Carthage, then on to Rome and Milan. This restlessness, however, has a telos to it. There is a longing for homea place of resta longing to feel at home and be at home. For Augustine, the restlessness of this infinite longing finds its answer in Godthe one who has made us for himselfand as Smith points out, in finding God the soul finds herself. In Augustine, Smith finds a saint deeply honest, approachable, and as it turns out, quite influential, and therefore relevant in our restless culture, a culture ever searching but rarely finding. Whether we know it or not, according to Smith, "we are philosophical heirs" of existentialism. "We have inhaled invisible philosophies in the cultural air we breathe. Our everyday quests for authenticity and identity are grooves in the heart laid down by the ripple effects of an existentialism we've perhaps never heard of". Tracing and unmasking the ripple effects of the Existentialism of the likes of Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Martin Heidegger on contemporary culture, forms a key element of Smith's book, for their concerns of freedom, authenticity, being, nothingness, anxiety, and angst, are our concerns. For Smith, the questions and quests of these existentialist are inherited from Augustine. The existentialistscourageously looking deeply at the phenomena of human experiencehave rightly identified that our hearts are restless, but rejected the idea that this restlessness has a telos. The answer for Heidegger, Camus, and others is to stop short of identifying an answer to our deepest questionsa home for our restless souls. Rather, they identify the restlessness itself, the road, the exercise of freedom as the answer; they have drawn a target around their restless hearts and declared "bullseye." For Smith, the malaise of 21st-century Western culture arises from following the existentialists but failing to continue on with Augustine all the way home. "We've been asking Augustine's questions for a century. Perhaps it's time to consider his answer". James K. A. Smith is a Canadian philosopher who is currently Professor of Philosophy at Calvin College (Grand Rapids, Michigan), holding the Gary & Henrietta Byker Chair in Applied Reformed Theology & Worldview. His work is undertaken at the borderlands between philosophy, theology, ethics, aesthetics, science, and politics. Drawing from continental philosophy and informed by a long Augustinian tradition of theological cultural critiquefrom Augustine and Calvin to Edwards and Kuyperhis interests are in bringing critical thought to bear on the practices of the church and the church's witness to culture, culminating in the need to interpret and understand what he has called "cultural liturgies." He is the author of dozens of articles and more than a few theory-laden books dealing with political theology and phenomenology, including Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? (2006), Desiring the Kingdom (2009), Imagining the Kingdom (2013), How (Not) To Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor (2014), You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit (2016), Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology (2017), On the Road with Saint Augustine (2019) and, most recently, The Nicene Option: An Incarnational Phenomenology (2021). The Art of Manliness #570: St Augustine's Real World Spirituality for Restless Hearts. Founded by Brett & Kate McKay, The Art of Manliness Podcast aims to deepen and improve every area of a man's life, from fitness and philosophy, to relationships and productivity. Engaging and edifying interviews with some of the world's most interesting doers and thinkers drop the fluff and filler to glean guests' very best, potentially life-changing, insights.