Disclaimer: This is a fictional portrayal of the TV character Ally McBeal and is not written by, endorsed by, or affiliated with the character or the show's creators. It's an imaginative piece written in a voice inspired by the character.
Okay, so if you had asked me six months ago which ancient theologian was keeping me up at night instead of staring at the ceiling imagining dancing babies or the perfect man, I would have laughed and said, "St. who?" But then — and I know how this sounds — I found myself obsessed with this huge old book called The City of God. Not the movie, not a real city, a book. And out of the twenty-two parts (yes, parts, not chapters — Augustine was not into quick reads), there is this one that feels like it was written for me, or maybe I was written for it: Book 19. Don’t tell anyone; it’s my secret comfort read between depositions and heartbreak.
Book 19 talks about love. I know, that sounds obvious — everybody thinks Augustine is all doom and bibbed-up gloom — but this is the most comforting thing I have ever read. It says that love is the ordering principle of everything. Imagine that: life is not a series of random humiliations and courtroom disasters. There is a rightness, a direction, and it's shaped by what and who we love. That idea hits me like a good confession — not the shame part, the relief part.
I mean, as a lawyer — as a somewhat neurotic lawyer who lives in a small apartment and has a dancing-baby hallucination at least once a week — my life is full of ordering and re-ordering. Contracts, calendars, relationships: always trying to put things where they belong. Augustine says that when love is rightly ordered, everything falls into place. You put love of God first — and before you flip out, I promise you, you can read "God" however you need: grace, goodness, the part of you that doesn’t lie, the part that can stand in front of a judge and tell the truth — and then you love yourself rightly and love other people in a way that doesn’t mutilate them or you. That is a radical thing to read when you are used to loving people messy and watching them leave or get married to someone else.
What I love about Book 19 is that Augustine doesn’t talk down. He’s not saying, "Love perfectly or else." He’s saying, "Here’s the structure of things. Here’s the architecture." If you build your house on a rotten foundation — say, obsessive jealousy or the need to be adored — your house will come down in the first storm. But if you orient your life around the higher love, the love that sees the bigger picture, then even if the roof leaks, you’ll know how to patch it without burning the whole place down.
Also, there’s this tenderness in him about human weakness. He admits people get things wrong. He knew what it was like to be human — and somehow that makes me feel less alone in my weird rituals, like alphabetizing my books by how soon they judge me. Augustine talks about the way lesser loves can lead to ugliness, not because love itself is bad, but because sometimes we love the wrong thing: status, appearances, a glimpse of affection that evaporates as soon as you sign the retainer. And when you see that, you’re asked to redirect your love. Redirection sounds like a big adult word, but it’s really just making small, daily choices: whom do I call tonight? What do I forgive? Where do I invest my time?
There’s also a legal metaphor in Book 19 that made me laugh in court once and then cry in therapy later. Augustine explains the difference between the City of Man and the City of God by examining loves one stains with the other. It’s like two different legal systems: one governed by immediate gratification, by power, by the need to win at all costs; the other governed by justice, mercy, and the long view. As a lawyer, I can see both systems in action every day. I see people who measure life in victories — who file, who fight, who never see the point of apology — and I see people who measure life in restoration. Augustine doesn’t pretend one is easy. He just calls you to notice which court you are in, and then invites you to change the case file if you want to.
And then the hope. Oh, the hope. Book 19 is not a pity party for sinners, and it’s not a smug chapel for saints. It’s a hopeful, stubborn argument that even when the City of Man collapses — even when Rome falls, even when your boyfriend moves to Kalamazoo — there is an order that persists. That persistence is what keeps me sane when my dating life collapses yet again, when I accidentally send an e-mail to the wrong partner, when I get laughed at in front of the entire firm. Augustine’s wisdom is like a friend who says, "It will not always be this way," and actually means it.
Finally, Book 19 taught me to stop pretending love is only romantic. For years my emotional playlist was on repeat: him, him, him. Augustine widened the playlist. He taught me to see love as the thing that sorts my priorities: friends who stay, work that matters, a sense of decency in a world that sometimes feels like a very mean courtroom. That doesn’t make my loneliness disappear — the loneliness still comes — but it makes it less absolute. There is a place for it in the bigger story, not as the end, but as a part of the process.
So if you ask me what Book 19 says to me in my own words: it says, "Ally, quit making idols out of bad coffee dates. Quit thinking your worth depends on whether you get called back." It says, "Order your loves. Let love for what is true and enduring come first, and then see how other things fall into better shapes." It’s like cleaning out a closet and realizing you have way too many shoes you don’t even wear. Once you throw the wrong ones out, the right ones are easier to find.
That’s why Book 19 is my favorite. It’s wise without being condescending, tough without being cruel, and comforting without being saccharine. And mostly, it gives me a sense that the mess of my life — the trials and the triumphs and the dancing-baby hallucinations — fits into a larger design where love, properly ordered, is the map out of chaos. Honestly, if Augustine had an advice column, I would subscribe.
In the end, the book doesn’t make me less dramatic — I am still Ally, after all — but it helps me be dramatic about the right things. It helps me argue for mercy when everyone else wants a verdict. It helps me hope for a kind of justice that isn’t about winning headlines but about healing. And that, for a woman who’s had more than her share of shattered heels and shattered hearts, feels like everything.
So yeah. Book 19: my secret late-night companion. My plea for better love. My legal brief for living well. If you ever see me curled up with Augustine instead of watching a rom-com, now you’ll know why.