Longing & Vocation

One consistent theme that has run through all of our readings has been that of longing. Everyone feels longing of some sort, at least when they are young, although they may suppress it as they grow older. All of our longings have a certain sense of nostalgia or needing to belong. Cornelius Plantinga Jr. puts it this way: “We keep wanting to 'get back', or to 'get in'” (World 5). C. S. Lewis describes this phenomenon in a similar way. “We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it” (Glory 8). Lewis’ words emphasize a unique aspect of this longing – the inability to define it. Often times, we cannot describe exactly what we are longing for in feeling this deep emotional pull.

One way that longing is expressed is through art, through music especially. Often when listening to a beautiful song, the dominant emotion conveyed by the music is that of longing. It is natural for art to display our longings, because they are often somewhat vague feelings, and emotion is the medium of art. Lewis describes “the inconsolable secret in each of you…the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell though we desire to do both”(Glory 3) These feelings, difficult to describe in words, can be more easily told through creations of art.

All of our longings are directed at some object, even if we cannot define what it is. We all long for something. As this is the case, the question must be asked, are there certain longings that are good, and others bad? Another way of putting it is; are there certain desires for things that are always bad, and others that are always good? Lewis addresses this when he says that, “Strictly speaking, there are no such things as good and bad impulses.” (Christianity 7) What he means by this is that an impulse, or desire, is not inherently good or bad. It is the context in which it is played out that gives it moral worth. For example, the desire for beauty, a good thing, can be destructive. It can lead to eating disorders and a preoccupation with oneself. This same desire, however, can also lead to a greater appreciation of the qualities of others and of the magnificence of God’s creation. In the end, the pursuit of beauty is the pursuit of God, because all that is beautiful is so because it reflects the beauty of God in some way. This pursuit only becomes evil when it is twisted away from its proper end. At their roots, all longings are good, because they all come out of our nature, but they all become twisted by sin, so that there is both good and evil that comes from every longing

Whenever our desires are fulfilled, inevitably we find that we are not completely satisfied. We may find satisfaction for a short time, but there is no lasting fulfillment. The longings return, because we long for more than this world can offer us. Lewis says, “Do what they will, then, we remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy” (Glory 4). All is not lost though. As Lewis points out, “A man’s physical hunger does not prove that that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist” (Glory 4). The very fact that we experience these longings points to there being a proper object of our longing that will fully satisfy it. The longings themselves, as well as the intermediary objects of desire, point to their final end. Lewis puts it best when he says:
“These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited” (Glory 3).
The true fulfillment of our desires shines through all the earthly things that we desire, which is why we seek them so fervently thinking that they are the answer. The glow coming through this world is shalom, or heaven. One day, when we are perfectly at peace with God, we will experience the true fulfillment of these longings. In the meantime, though, what are we to do with our intermediate desires? They cannot satisfy us, so we should not focus on them exclusively, but they must be recognized for what they are - expressions of our desire for Christ's Kingdom to be on Earth as in Heaven – and realize that they cannot be done away with. The answer to this dilemma comes in the form of vocation.

Vocation and longing are two important concepts that are not often linked, though they are integrally related. In Engaging God's World, Cornelius Plantinga Jr. quotes Fredrick Beuchner saying, “the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet” (World, 118). Our longings and our vocation are related. Each of us longs for the same thing in one sense, because only perfect harmony with God, or shalom, will truly satisfy all our desires, but each of our longings for shalom are expressed, or personified, in different ways. Some people’s deepest longings are for good relationships, and they may be called to be peacemakers, possibly as counselors, or as a good friend or mother. There are others who long for knowledge, and they will probably be called to teach or expand our understanding of the world. Personally, I long for good built-environments, so I am studying architecture. No matter what the expression our longings find, it is our duty to work to bring this world closer to shalom, through the means of our vocation.

If our work is an expression of our longings, then our attitude towards work must be quite different from the typical, dreary mentality of merely getting through the work day so that you can get on with the meaningful part of your life. Dorothy Sayers addresses this change of attitude in an essay titled Why Work. She says of work, “It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker’s faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God” (Work 6). When we work, we should be expressing our longings by doing, to the best of our ability. In this way, we are bringing this world closer to shalom, the state in which everything will be perfect. We will never reach our goal on this earth, but it is our duty and privilege to practice, or play make-believe, until the day in which we will experience the reality of a perfect world that will fulfill every longing.

As Christians, this is an imperative that we reform our understanding of work, because it relates to our witness to the world. When speaking about a carpenter, Sayers says, “What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables” (Work 8). Jesus would have made worse tables because He was more spiritual than any of the other carpenters he was around. Sayers putting it quite starkly, says that we have “Forgotten that a building must be good architecture before it can be a good church; that a painting must be well painted before it can be a good sacred picture; that work must be good work before it can call itself God’s work” (Work 8). Sayers’ point is that if we are working for the Lord, to glorify Him, we should not be turning out anything less than the best our efforts can produce.

All of us naturally long for beauty, or a complete family, or something we cannot define. It is an innate part of our humanity, because we were made for communion with God, and we have lost it through sin. Our longings point us back to God, but they can also lead us astray. In our Christian lives, we live out our longings through our vocations, which is the intersection of working for the glory of God and fulfilling our longings by trying to bring shalom to this earth.






Works Cited

Lewis, C. S. Weight of Glory. http://www.calvin.edu/~pribeiro/DCM-Lewis-2009/Lewis/weighofglory.pdf. Web. 10 Jan. 2011.
---. Mere Christianity. http://www.calvin.edu/~pribeiro/DCM-Lewis-2009/Lewis/MERE%20CHRISTIANIT-%201-4.doc. Web 12 Jan. 2011.
Plantinga, Cornelius Jr. Engaging God's World: A Reformed Vision of Faith, Learning, and Living. Eerdmans, 2002. Print.
Sayers, Dorothy. Why Work. www.faith-at-work.net/Docs/WhyWork.pdf. Web. 22 Jan. 2011.