The Restless Hearts in Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run’

In perhaps the most famous sentences from St. Augustine’s magisterial fourth-century memoir, “Confessions,” the bishop of Hippo tells Our Lord, “You awaken us to delight in your praise; for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” But what is often overlooked are the sentences that precede these famous words. Our heart is restless, suggests St. Augustine, because we “carry around our mortality; we carry around the evidence of our own sin.” Our human hearts are heavy with sin and mortality, and this is precisely the reason that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. The restless heart is encumbered by sin and mortality, but that is not its natural state. The fallen heart cries out to the one — the Only One — who can truly give it rest.