Sehnsucht

[sheeba]

[girlfreddy]

[Leslie]

We had a thread on this a while back, which you can find here:

[sheeba]

[Lirenel]

[surprisedbyjoy]

I think anyone who doesn't smother their capacity to experience beauty in foolish, ugly and worthless things experiences this feeling sometimes. . .and the funny thing is, it's such a private emotion that we all think that we're the only ones! But really, Lewis is far from being the only writer to mention this, I think: Sheldon Vanauken writes about "the pain of beauty" in A Severe Mercy; see also the chapter entitled "Many Partings" in LotR, and the chapter "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" in The Wind in the Willows. I have known people that I doubt experience Sehnsucht, primarily because of the trashy music, video games, and other stuff that they have filled themselves with. But I think that this feeling is a universal for people that take care of their soul.

I used to feel this often. My experience of this feeling has primarily been created by the books I love most (which is why I'm studying English), but also by nature--particularly harsh, windy, gray weather. I think I have also felt it when I was acting (which I think of as my art and pursue with devotion). Curiously enough, I haven't felt it much since I've been in college; I think because I've been too busy and I've been in love for the first time in my life. My feelings for my wife are similar, but very different from Sehnsucht. But it still comes back every now and then and knocks me down.

My screen-name is surprisedbyjoy because I identified so strongly with Lewis's autobiography and the emotion he calls Joy. At the time I chose the name, I didn't yet realize how. . .common doesn't seem like the right word. . .universal this emotion really is. But I think Lewis is right, that this is something God placed in us to draw us nearer to him (as I think he gave us romantic love to model his own).

[sheeba]

Lirenel,
Thanks for responding with such empathy. When I was in grade four some 40 years ago, my teacher Miss Buxton read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to our class. I still remember going home when the last page had been read and climbing into my bedroom wardrobe in the forlorn hope that I might find a way into Narnia. The strange thing is, I knew , even as I did it, that I was being foolish and wasting my time. Something deep inside urged me to at least try.
I often tell people that I'm still searching for a way into Narnia.
I know what you mean by saying you feel like you don't belong here. I am from Melbourne, Australia and we have a cartoonist/poet here who touches upon this subject quite often. His name is Michael Leunig. I will grab some of my Leunig books from my classroom and share some of them with you. They are far more powerful when read in the context of the cartoons he draws but I think you will get a sense of the man. You should "google' him.
I must say that I am very much in love with my life on earth. Like you, I am looking forward to being in the place I ache for, but my best friend and soulmate Maggie and my two beautiful kids bring me joy on a daily basis that I never take for granted. I think they wonder at my constant searching and questioning but they understand that that is who I am.

Surprisedbyjoy , thanks for citing other examples of painful longing-I'll check them out. I think you are right when you suggest why some people never experience Sehnsucht. They would trample over the sensation even if it struck them and dismiss its power and meaning from their minds without a momen's consideration. I think Lewis said we have all experienced it but some of us reduce it to names like sappy sentimentality or nostalgia and remove any notion of mystery or meaning from it. This is often done because people fear emotional responses and belittling them or laughing at our own tears or yearnings makes us safe from reproach or the mocking laughter of others.

[Lirenel]

[salanor]

[sheeba]

[salanor]

[salanor]

[John Anthony]

[Kolbitar]

Dear sheeba,

Lewis’ observations of Sehnsucht have been like magic to me.

On a certain secular message board the question was posed asking why one believes what one does, to which I wrote up a response. I’ve edited out the last part about why, specifically, I’m a Catholic (as opposed to Protestant) Christian because it is not immediately relevant to the topic…

I’m a Catholic Christian.

Why? Well, to begin, I am flat out humbled by the mystery of reality, the riddle of the One and the Many, which confronts my intellect; as Peter Kreeft said, "One… specifically Christian mood [is] of joy and wonder at the sheer fact of existence... I love a quotation by Kirkegaard. He said, ‘I am terrified by everything, from the smallest gnat to the mystery of the incarnation.’” I feel no need to reduce reality purely to my own limited number of “clear and distinct ideas”; this is a Cartesian criterion which has become synonymous with “rationalism”, but is in fact an arbitrary and truncated perspective.

In addition to the confrontation of my intellect with the “sheer fact of existence” I also find, thrust upon my experience, the longing for an heretofore “unattainable ecstasy” which, by it’s very nature, cannot be found in the reality given to my senses or any subjective state of my being, and which is the ultimate object of my will.

I consider these two facts of my conscious existence akin to “non-reductive primitives” of the physical world like space and time; that is, they form a fundamental context and general qualification to all other knowledge and action I may consider. I must therefore -- compelled by the undeniable nature of these facts -- live my life driven by a “thirst for a wilder beauty than earth supplies”, beyond the limited scope of my abstract intellect, in pursuit of the mystery at the heart of reality.

Any theory, philosophy or religion which conflicts with these primary data – data which, by the way, include their own implicit philosophies – will a-priori fail to do justice to all the given facts and are, for that reason, automatically suspect to my mind.

These facts taken alone might predispose me to seek Divine Revelation (supra-rational knowledge) as a sort of aesthetic capstone, a pleasant looking cherry on top to complete my worldview. However, I simply cannot take these facts alone, and, though I’ve so far given the impression that these data are convictions chronologically prior to my acceptance of Christianity, quite the opposite is in fact the case.

C.S Lewis, in Mere Christianity, writes, “[there are] two facts [which] are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in: We know the Law of Nature; (we) break it." He goes on to explain why, once given a God-who-is-perfectly-good exists, this “fact” -- which I consider the third “non-reductive primitive,” so to speak, of our conscious existence -- must lead us, in so many words, to either despair or revelatory hope.

When I look back at my experience, first becoming an Evangelical Christian, I see all of these elements implicitly present. My (intellectual) humility, beginning as a child, together with my admitted failure to appease the voice of my conscience and my longing to be happy made me ripe for the reception of – and subsequent and repeated rededications to -- the message of Jesus Christ. Everything else that I accept as revelation is tied to this existential need for a savior met by the factual, historical figure, actions and claims of Jesus Christ.

Blessings,

Jesse

[Robert]