On Nostalgia, Faith, and Worship

As part of my job in childcare this summer, I've spent the last few days furnishing a classroom in an old abandoned private middle school, getting it ready for 5th and 6th graders to learn and have fun.

I noticed that last month many of the old students (from as far back as 1990 even) had visited the old school and its classrooms and left messages on the chalkboards.  Now... I may be a bit cynical, but I honestly don't know of anyone (especially in their 20's and 30's) who would characterize middle school as "the best time of my life".  And yet there was not a negative message on the board, and most of them read things like "this was and always will be my home", and "all my best memories are here". Now...maybe I'm wrong and there's actually an entire generation of people who enjoyed middle school (and of course I know that anyone who hated the school wouldn't have showed up to commemorate it), but this sounds like "nostalgia":

"A sentimental longing for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.[and/or] The evocation of these feelings or tendencies, esp. in commercialized form."

So nostalgia is an emotion that colors our perception of something... It gives us a longing for something past that we've perceived to be good in contrast to a current state that we perceive to be not as good. This may be contrary to the actual case, and often times it keeps us from remembering the not-so-good that may have formed our character. In other words, the grass is always greener in the past when we wear nostalgia glasses.

There's definitely a detriment that can come with this-- primarily it distracts us from being grateful for our current blessings and state of life in preference for something that we really can't get back.  Secondly, in nostalgia we feel to acknowledge (or even move on from) sufferings and inconveniences that have formed our character and given us virtue.  If we ignore these events in our lives we are not using them for our benefit and they, in a sense, beat us and trap is in the past.

Is Nostalgia good for our faith? Does is serve a purpose in worship or drawing us closer to God?

The Hebrews were nostalgic for the kingdom days while they were exiled in Babylon. Psalm 137 shows how the Israelites would not sing or celebrate the old days in gratitude but rather looked on them with longing. They forgot that the reason they were exiled was because of their own disobedience. Instead of learning from the exile, reflecting on how to become more righteous because of it, they only sat and wept. Furthermore, they hung up their harps and refused to sing and worship the LORD. They were trapped in the past, rather than using the current situation to move forward.

Where I most often see nostalgia present in my faith is through Worship music. When I hear certain songs (most often cheesy P&W songs that were written when I was in High School), I think back to the "good old days" when I was first really passionate about my faith, I had a very strong community that I saw many times a week, and when I was really enjoying ministry and learned what it meant to be a leader. Sometimes... I long to go back to those days, to have that type of faith.

But then I realize--God has brought me to where I am in my faith for a reason. I know what my vocation, and probably my occupation, are supposed to be. I'm more educated and able to defend and express my faith. I am ready to raise children in the faith. And I have a deeper understanding of how God works in my life through providence and grace. Those days of past faith were essential in bringing me to where I am now, but they're not where I'm meant to stay, and I should seek to grow and move forward in my faith, even if that means changing how that faith is manifest and expressed, and even if it means embracing suffering.

I think that nostalgia CAN be acceptable if one does not get trapped by it, if it doesn't preoccupy one from one's current situation, and if it motivates one to pursue correct happiness. However, it is a hard thing to do, so perhaps outside of the occasional and brief relapse, nostalgia is best avoided.

On Happiness

At some point in our lives we all have to ask ourselves a couple questions.  The first among them is, “what kind of person do I want to be?”  Some of us want to be like our parents… some don’t.  Some of us want to live a life of optimism and love, while some people have resigned themselves to living a life of cynicism and apathy.  Some want to do great things and change the world, whereas others desire only to serve people in small ways and stay in the background.

After this, the next question we must ask is, “what kind of person am I now”?  The disparity between these two can be either discouraging or depressing.  Some people, despising how their parents raised them or the type of people their parents were, spend their whole lives trying to become the opposite, only to realize eventually that, at some level, we all must become like our parents.  Some people can’t even ask this question… rather than working at trying to be happy and fear not being so, they instead resign themselves to depressing lives of cynicism and sadness.  Do some of us even know the type of people we want to be? Or are we too scared to ask for fear of realizing how far we’ve strayed from our ideals?

I want to live a holy, Christian, masculine life.  I want to serve God in everything I do.  I want to be a good father and a good husband, and I want to be able to lay down my life for my family if ever I need to do so.  I want to be courageous, and be able to go off to war if that is what my country needs.  I want to have a fierce heart.  But most of all… I want to be happy.

Happiness seems a sort of paradox.  It’s something that every single human person wants (on some level), but very few of us have.  Here’s the funny part… everything that a human person would naturally think brings them true happiness never really does.  It’s definitely not money, most rich people actually aren’t happy just because they’re rich.  Many of them actually find out money has taken from them everything that otherwise would have been important to them (a marriage, a sense of purpose).  It’s not even family or “making a difference”.  Many people are happy without a family, and many people who make a difference in the world feel empty after their great accomplishment.  Where then do they turn when they feel they’ve fulfilled the purpose of their life and still live twenty or thirty years?

What it all comes down to is that happiness is not attainable without God in your life.  Atheists might claim they are happy.  But it’s a superficial, bodily type of happiness.  At some point in their life they will realize that reason alone, that sex, that money, that even a happy marriage, at some level have left them feeling empty.  As C.S. Lewis states (roughly), “If I find myself with a desire that nothing in the world can satisfy, the most likely explanation is that I was made for a different world”.  Without God, you will always feel empty.

That’s not to say Christian’s don’t feel moments of emptiness… of desolation, of abandonment, of fear, of uncertainty.  It does mean, however, that they have a consistent foundation on which they can stand, to which they can look, when their world starts to shake and crumble around them.  Christianity and God allows a person to know where they need to go, and provides them tools to get there.  It is easy to see why people without such a worldview so often become cynical of the world around them.

                Who are you, and where do you want to be?  Are you happy?  If not, how are you going to get there?