Nostalgia as an Argument for God

 Nostalgia as an Argument for God

Darrell Dooyema, May 2022

What is that deep feeling, somewhat sweet, somewhat sad, a longing for years gone by?  Why do we have such feelings as human beings?  Could there be any evolutionary benefit to having feelings of nostalgia?  Or, conversely, could they point us toward an eternal reality for which we have been attuned?  

What is nostalgia?  When that specific song plays (yes, that one), or that smell (you know the aroma) hits your nostrils, or you taste again the spice you enjoyed as a youth (or your mother’s recipe)…you are transported in an instant to another time, another place.  It is not too strong of a word to say that in this moment you yearn for something, but for what?  Is there an instinctual desire for something that could aid in your survival here?  Do you yearn for longer life, stronger existence, or reproductive advantage?  No, nostalgia is a longing for the past, a desire to remember, to feel, to taste again, to return to the sweetness of the past, and it seems quite unconcerned with current strength of existence.  A dying patient can experience nostalgia, just as strongly as a vigorously alive individual…a young person just as sure as an aging one.     

We remember what is lost, yet we remember it with fondness and appreciation.  We remember the good, and at times even the harsh realities of the past are softened by our nostalgic senses.  We remember people and feel ready to forgive even, to move beyond the petty arguments that perhaps plagued us then, but seem insignificant now.  It is the shared experience that brings us closer now to those who were there with us back then.  We attend reunions, meet with old friends, and invite family members long separated to return in hopes of a reconnection with our past, a sense of belonging perhaps or a sense of finding our place in our shared history.

Could this memory editing hold some evolutionary benefit for us?  Perhaps it serves to pacify us in our present existence, to mollify our memories and medicate our troubling conscious thoughts.  Couldn’t it be just as likely to be a disadvantage, causing us to forget or soften painful experiences that could teach us to avoid potentially dangerous situations?  Why would we long for things long ago, why feel close to those in our past, why not merely move on?

Nostalgia seems to deepen with age, though perhaps a mere result of the accumulation of experience and years.  Is this evidence that nostalgia is merely sadness at aging or the desire to return to our youth?  Yet, it doesn’t seem to exactly match this either.  Yes, there is a sadness at the loss of youth, the loss of energy and passion of earlier days.  We look back and wonder how we could be so sure of ourselves, so energetic, so creative perhaps.  However, nostalgia is not mere sadness, no mere loss.  There is a sweetness to it, that defies explanation.  

Perhaps, this deeply human experience points us toward a reality that is much larger than us.  We long to find our place, we yearn to understand our history, our story, to know what if any significance can be found in the pages of our book.  Nostalgia brings us back to a position of gratitude, looking back with a sense of joy in fact, or perhaps in the inflated tales of stories that have deepened and broadened with time.  With time the fish has grown in length, the waves increased in size, the danger avoided has become even more exciting than our first experience.  The sadness of loss is tempered by the grand and at times grandiose memories of our own metanarrative, even when we can’t see how it all fits together.  

And yet, nostalgia is not all about us. Though we remember with joy, we also discover an unmet desire, something lacking, something pressing us forward.  Nostalgia fills us with a longing for a higher reality, for permanence and eternity, for things we cannot experience in this life.  While everything around us is changing, and a good memory serves as a signpost of radical change, we find ourselves yearning for that which does not change, which lasts, which endures.  Why would we have such a desire?  

Consider CS Lewis’ point that our desires correspond to real fulfillment.  We are hungry because food is real, thirsty because water exists, we desire love because there is such a thing, friendship because it is real, we feel sexual desire since this too can be satisfied in loving relationship.  Yet, we also find longings for things that nothing in this world can satiate, nothing in our ever-changing environs could suffice.  We long for that which is eternal, unchanging, permanent.  Lewis writes, “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.”  (Mere Christianity).  

Pascal notes that within each human being is a void, a “God-shaped void” as he puts it, that can only be filled with relationship to the divine person.  Nothing else will do, though many things will perhaps point us in this direction.  Perhaps Nostalgia is yet another pointer to the void only fillable with God Himself.  Sin’s long separation has produced in us a deep desire to return. We long for reconnection (re-ligion) with the one who made us, with the One who loves us and redeems our life. 

When we pause to enjoy that song (you know the one), that smell (yes, mmm that smell) or return with fondness to the friends of our youth, we display a desire for eternity.  Pause on it, savor it, enjoy it, and take a long and nostalgic look heavenward for the satiating relationship that can only be met by God.