Note: This is a lightly edited version of an e-mail I sent on May 10, 2015. The concept of Sehnsucht was originally introduced to me by a dear friend (Gloria Repp) some years prior. Since writing this I have experienced what I only know how to describe as a kind of emotional burnout. The glimpses described her stopped. Whether from aging, emotional trauma, or some other cause I do not know. Nevertheless, it feels a bit like a part of my brain–the emotionally imaginative and hopeful part–has burnt out. Hopefully not forever. (DL, Dec. 4, 2022)
Sehnsucht is a German word. It means “longing.”
But it represents something more than that English word conveys. It is a very difficult concept for me to explain, but it’s a very important one, for it a key to my secret heart, my secret longing. In Surprised by Joy, C. S. Lewis uses the word “Joy” in a special way. It’s a feeling he would get at certain unexpected moments while reading or walking in the countryside or listening to music. More than happiness, more than jollity, it’s like for a moment he would get a feeling or a glimpse of something deeper, more real, more perfect than this world. He would be taken beyond this world for a moment and filled with wonder; he would be surprised by joy. And those glimpses of joy begat a longing for joy, a longing for the perfect, a longing that led him to search for it in literature and music and philosophy till he found it in Christ. That longing for joy, for the perfect and complete, could be called sehnsucht,
The Wikipedia article on Sehnsucht (which is very good), defines it in part like this: “Sehnsucht represents thoughts and feelings about all facets of life that are unfinished or imperfect, paired with a yearning for ideal alternative experiences. It has been referred to as ‘life’s longings’; or an individual’s search for happiness while coping with the reality of unattainable wishes. Such feelings are usually profound, and tend to be accompanied by both positive and negative feelings. This produces what has often been described as an ambiguous emotional occurrence.“ It has been said to me many times (and said in truth) that I don’t seem to get very emotional about things. This fact about myself has caused me much frustration and pain and even guilt at various times. But I am not emotionless; I do feel deeply, but in ways that are not easy to communicate and that do not always show outwardly (look at the painting on the Wikipedia article [Sehnsucht, by Oskar Zwintscher]). I have felt the longing for joy, the Sehnsucht, Lewis described in his book.
If I had to pick one, I would pick this as my defining emotion. Certainly it has been my defining desire.
It’s not something I feel all the time, or daily, or even weekly. It comes in flashes. But like Lewis described in Surprised by Joy, those flashes of joy—of longing momentarily fulfilled with vision—become something you seek after. This more than anything else was what led me to literature, and—deep down—it is what motivated me to the Ph.D., to the opportunity to learn Old English and Latin, to open new windows to the old, to the far off, to the high and noble.
It is also this longing that has motivated a great part of my desire for video games and things like Dungeons & Dragons—trying often in vain (so utterly in vain) to capture some feeling of the heroic, of the noble.
It was also in part this that led me towards missions, and in particular Chinese missions, and specifically missions to the hard place where no one else had been or wanted to go. The desire was to do something noble, heroic, and worthy. To enter into the legendary world of a man like Hudson Taylor, a man who lived a life utterly worth living and who saw God up close and personal.
I have discovered visions of joy in Tolkien, in Lewis, in some music, in some art. I have found it in my own musings and imaginings. Another world. Another place. One of deep beauty and perfect fulfillment surpassing the mundane. I have felt glimpses. And I have felt the longing for more glimpses and for more than glimpses. It was this longing that has drawn me back to Tolkien again and again. It was the beauty of another world—a perfect world. Some of the pictures by artists such as Ted Naismith that have appeared in the annual Tolkien calendars (see particularly June in the 1996 calendar) even today stick firmly in my mind and have at one time or another provoked in me the feelings I am referring to.
And of course, I felt it in the Gospel—at least in the part of the Gospel that promises redemption of broken things. Revelation 21 was a favorite chapter for a long time with its description of the New Jerusalem and the wiping away of all tears. Restoration in Jesus for eternity. The perfect world. This is why a book like Randy Alcorn’s book on Heaven spoke strongly to me.
But the mundane is the opposite of the perfect; it is the opposite of joy.
Dishes, and mowing, and homework, and grading papers—all the necessary, daily, grindy, mundane tasks of life—these have never been sources of joy. They have been in many ways the opposite of joy. And this—not alone, but most of all—is why I have hated them.