The Grief of Nostalgia

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As the old year gives place to the new, there is an inevitable introspection over the dying year and an equally inevitable expectation of hope for the rising year.

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Nostalgia is a strange emotion: it is so easy look back over the years wearing rose-tinted glasses and think how much better the world was in times gone by. ‘My schooldays were the happiest days of my life’ - but were they? What about those glorious holidays: we not forget the horror of airports, the dubious hotel? It is so easy to remember the good things and  indulge in happy memories but fortunately the human psyche has an inbuilt ‘delete’ button to forget the less pleasant moments.

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What do I mean by ‘the grief of nostalgia’? It is a very real grief for times, things, and people: it is a grief born of the fact that we did things in the past but cannot do now, and I doubt if anyone escapes a deep longing for the days when they did x or were close friends with y. Like death, it is a grief with which we have to contend on a daily basis: remember the unfortunate Job in the Old Testament ‘if we take joy from the Lord’s hands, must we not take sorrow too?’

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The world is in a perpetual cycle of death and resurrection - and so of hope. I think of plants that disappear into the soil in the autumn yet revive as beautiful flowers as the days get longer and the sun rises higher in the sky. Remember that S. Paul wrote ‘and now faith, hope, and love abide’. When the griefs of this fleeting life are over, we shall be raised to an incomprehensible mystical sphere beyond mortal sight where we will dwell in bliss for all eternity.

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Deacon Douglas MacMillan

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The Collect

 

O Lord Jesus Christ,

who at your first coming sent your messenger

to prepare your way before you:

grant that the ministers and stewards of your mysteries

may likewise so prepare and make ready your way

by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just,

that at your second coming to judge the world

we may be found an acceptable people in your sight;

for you are alive and reign with the Father

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever.

Amen.