Nostalgia's Deeper Cousin
The Musings of Augustus Merriweather
Dear cherished readers,
I’m deeply grateful you’ve chosen to spend a few moments with this humble Southern gentleman’s musings. If you find a morsel of wisdom or a spark of inspiration herein, I’d be much obliged if you’d share it with a friend or encourage them to subscribe. Now, shall we embark on today’s journey of the heart and mind?
🏡 Homesickness for a Place We’ve Never Been 🌟
My dear friends,
As I sit here in my study, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee mingling with the musty scent of well-loved books, I find myself caught in a peculiar state of mind. It’s a feeling that’s as familiar as my favorite tweed jacket, yet as elusive as trying to catch fog in a butterfly net.
You see, there’s a certain melancholy that often steals over me, much like the gentle mist that rolls in from the coast on a cool Palmetto Cove morning. For years, I dismissed it as mere nostalgia - a wistful longing for the halcyon days of youth. But as I’ve grown older (and hopefully a smidgen wiser), I’ve come to realize it’s something far more profound.
🌹 The Scent of an Unseen Flower 🎶
C.S. Lewis, that marvelous Oxford don who’s been a constant companion on my intellectual journeys, coined a term for this feeling: Joy. Not the fleeting happiness we experience when our beloved Georgia Bulldogs score a touchdown (though that’s delightful in its own right), but a deep, almost painful longing for something beyond our grasp.
Lewis writes in Surprised by Joy:
“It was something quite different from ordinary life and even from ordinary pleasure; something, as they would now say, ‘in another dimension.’”
True joy often manifests as a bittersweet longing for something beyond this world.
This Joy, my friends, is like catching the faintest whiff of a flower we’ve never seen or hearing a strain of music from a symphony we’ve yet to attend. It’s a homesickness for a place we’ve never been. (My paraphrase of Lewis in The Weight of Glory.)
📖 Eternity in Our Hearts 🕰️
Now, lest you think old Augustus has gone off his rocker, let me assure you that this concept is as old as time itself. Why, even wise King Solomon touched upon it in Ecclesiastes 3:11:
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.
Isn’t that a marvel? The very fabric of our souls is woven with threads of eternity. No wonder we sometimes feel out of place in this temporal world!
🔭 A Clue to Our True Home 🗺️
Lewis, in his inimitable way, suggests that this longing is actually a clue to our true purpose. In Mere Christianity, he posits:
“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.”
Our deepest longings often point to realities beyond our current experience.
My friends, this isn’t just idle philosophy. It’s a beacon of hope in a world that often seems adrift. When we recognize this longing for what it is - a homing signal for our eternal destiny - it can transform how we view our earthly sojourn.
🎭 From Nostalgia to Noble Pursuit 🏔️
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve often mistaken this Joy for simple nostalgia. Why, I once spent an entire afternoon waxing poetic about my grandmother’s peach cobbler, convinced that if I could just taste it one more time, all would be right with the world. (And let me tell you, that cobbler was a slice of heaven on earth!)
But true Joy, as Lewis describes it, isn’t about looking backward. It’s about looking upward and forward.
Next time you feel a pang of inexplicable longing, pause and reflect. Could this be pointing you towards something greater?
Another idea: Record moments when you experience this deep longing and reflect on what eternal truths they might be hinting at.
🌅 The Promise of Home 🏛️
My dear readers, as we navigate this beautiful, bewildering world, let’s not dismiss these moments of Joy as mere flights of fancy. Instead, let’s see them for what they truly are - glimpses of our true home, echoes of eternity calling us onward.
As the great hymn writer Isaac Watts penned:
There is a land of pure delight,
Where saints immortal reign;
Infinite day excludes the night,
And pleasures banish pain.
Until that day when our longing is fully satisfied, let’s cherish these moments of Joy. Let them remind us that we’re part of a grander story, one that extends far beyond the borders of Palmetto Cove or even this mortal coil.
And who knows? Perhaps one day, we’ll look back on these earthly longings and realize they were but a pale shadow of the glory we now behold. Now wouldn’t that be something?
Until our paths cross again, may your hearts be filled with Joy and your eyes fixed on eternity.
Yours in perpetual wonder,
Augustus B. Merriweather III
P.S. If you’ve found a morsel of wisdom in these ramblings, I’d be grateful if you’d share it with a friend. After all, we’re all fellow travelers on this grand journey home. And who couldn’t use a friendly signpost now and then? 🌟🏡📬