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Getting ready to preach the life of St. Augustine this coming Sunday and I'm flummoxed: 
       How to convey the power and the glory?
       How do I convey an experience that shapes the arc of a life?

Reading his prose as young man I fell madly in love with the idea of Love; 
       Gobsmacked with passion, I burned to touch
       The sill of the Ostia window where Augustine and Monica, 
       For one brief Moment
       Stepped through the portal of eternity

I can't think how to plunge my listeners into the burning prose
       that scorched cool cloistered courtyards
       blowing through flying arches into God's tumultuous quest
Emboldened to name silly little contrivances (the stealing of a pear!)
While daring to dam vast hormonal seas that wash the shores of youth

Maybe this will work for Baby Boomers:
I remember reading somewhere that when Mick Jagger first heard Jimi Hendrix play a London club he was terrified
A beauty so terrible that he knew that, now, everything must change
His place in the pantheon shakier, almost undone
thoughts and experiences too small
Are you experienced?

Of course, none of us are.
Preaching a life is like trying to bottle the soul
I can't play the guitar solo on "Voodoo Child"
but I can invite those who will listen to stand next to St. Augustine's Fire.