An Orthodox priest I know often writes on Facebook and quotes his favourite spiritual authors. One from Elder Saint Nectarios of Aegina:

The heart of the unbeliever is no longer full of infinity and is always groaning, seeking and longing, but never satisfied. This is because the pleasures of the world are powerless to fill the emptiness of his heart. The pleasures and amusements of the world, when they are extinguished, leave only bitterness in the heart, while vain glories have sorrows for companions.

We are led to perfection by the Lord, who comes and dwells in us when we do His commandments. And one of the first commandments is to do in our lives the will, not our own, but God’s. And to be done with the precision that is done in heaven by the angels.

I remember my parents trying to teach me not to want so much in life and to be content with little. Don’t yearn for the impossible, otherwise you will be disappointed. On one side, these are wise counsels. On the other side, if we have no desire, we surrender our humanity and fit into our predetermined slots. Christianity, like Judaism, is full of this theme of desire and longing. A few years ago, I wrote O for the Wings of a Dove. I referred to a choral piece by Mendelssohn who was both a Romantic and of Jewish origins. Longing and yearning are emotions that fill the psalms. Here are two examples:

By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, * when we remembered thee, O Sion.
As for our harps, we hanged them up * upon the trees that are therein.
For they that led us away captive, required of us then a song, and melody in our heaviness: * Sing us one of the songs of Sion.
How shall we sing the Lord’s song * in a strange land?

Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks, * so longeth my soul after thee, O God.
My soul is athirst for God, yea, even for the living God: * when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?
My tears have been my meat day and night, * while they daily say unto me, Where is now thy God?

This sense of alienation is one of my most profound and enduring emotions. I was electrified when I discovered the notion of Sehnsucht in Novalis, C.S. Lewis and a few others. Lewis spoke of an inconsolable longing within us for we know not what. That object of our desire is our own far off country . . . for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. This Sehnsucht is a German word translated as longing or yearning for something inexpressible. We Christians believe that this yearning is not a temptation but an experience given by God of eternity. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says that God hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

For a child in a not-very-religious family, I too could not identify this mysterious world. Sometimes a film at the cinema might give me some inkling, especially a world of another time, or a fantasy world full of absolute beauty. Words and images would convey something other than their conventional meanings as understood by most people. If I spoke about these “impressions”, I would be told that it was all in my imagination, and that I should be working harder with my writing and arithmetic. All my life, including now, I have felt this alienation and longing for roots, that ideal world. As I grow older, I make the distinction between being happy with what I have in this world, and what I yearn for through the veil of death. I know that I am not alone, but most of us are careful what we say lest we be taken for mentally ill people with delusions. We should welcome these thoughts and feelings as a gift from God, something that pulls us from our worldly concerns to the ultimate reality.

This yearning is not an end in itself. It has what we call in moral theology the finis operis, the final purpose of a moral act or emotion. We can take a knife to cut food or to kill someone – taking a knife in itself has no moral significance. God reveals himself to us by means of what I analogically call an icon. Of course, this icon may take the form of an image of Christ or the saints, but our emotional and imaginative reaction to the transcendentals of truth, beauty and goodness are meant to lead us to the final end, which is God and our eternal union with him. As a small boy, I had no notion of this finality, so yearned to live in the worlds I saw in Walt Disney films, to sprout wings and fly like a bird, to sail the seas and explore new worlds. As an adult, I made the latter a reality by learning to sail and buying a boat.

I remember in philosophy that one of the “proofs” for the existence of God is that we desire him. St Paul wrote to the Hebrews: But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city. Sehnsucht brought C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity to conclude:

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

This is a thought I can bring into my mind when I am filled by anxiety because of my feeling of having little in the way of roots. Had I been un homme du torrent living in my home town of Kendal, doing a humdrum job, would I be happier? Remaking one’s life is absolutely futile. May this Advent be a longing for the Incarnate Word who made our desire for God possible in spite of the veils of our sinfulness. Children have Advent calendars to live each day towards the Light. We have the liturgy and the ancient Messianic Prophecies to guide us on our way.

The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart hath trusted in him, and I am helped : therefore my heart danceth for joy, and in my song will I praise him (Psalm 28).