The Healing of that Old Ache: An Ode to Sunsets & Childhood

Have you ever found yourself lost in a sunset?

In the dying light of an evening long ago, across an ocean of time and circumstances, I caught a glimpse of something that I will never forget. What I saw—the beauty that my heart tasted in that moment—was less the thing in and of itself than it was the thing beyond the thing.

What I saw was a sunset: sharp, grey spires of pines clothed with golden light; and as the horizon leveled, a rich amber, like fire, erupting from the velvet shadows just beyond the nearest hills. I had seen many sunsets up until this point, but something stirred in me on that particular evening. What I tasted in that moment—the ache my soul experienced—filled me with a sense of nostalgia. It was as though I became an onlooker into things that were not to be seen by mortal eyes, while feeling strangely familiar and at home all the same.

Truly, something restless stirred in my soul that evening; a deep and profound sense of longing awoke that is yet to be put to rest. Indeed, I have been trying to open that curtain again and again ever since that night.

An Ode to Sunsets

There are moments, perhaps only fleeting slivers of a moment, in which one catches the tune of something far-off and distant. We hear this tune in the dancing of golden sunlight upon autumn leaves, or the crescendo of beauty that lies in the clouds at sunset; a sight so rich in beauty, so tangible, that you feel you could almost walk over the nearest hill and round the next bend directly into those halls of glory beyond the clouds themselves.

As if, for only for a moment, the curtain is pulled back ever so slightly on every longing and ache of the human soul: the doors of eternity themselves having been thrown wide open for a moment in time. As though you were chasing an otherworldly song through an endless corridor, unsatisfied until your hands finally and fully rested on the source of the music. And then, before we know it, the music fades and the curtain is drawn once more, leaving us back in our own world once again.

In these moments there arises a longing; a near maddening, romantic arousal within one’s soul; a faint whisper and soft suggestion that this world is not our home after all—indeed, how can it be? When C.S. Lewis spoke of the wood beyond the world,—this feeling, this sense of nostalgia—he had this mysteriously evasive quality of aching and longing in mind: “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.”

In his monumental essay The Weight of Glory, Lewis expands further on this ache:

“Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache.”

...And Childhood

While no one has had a perfect childhood, many of us had a good childhood—even a great one. I, for my part, had a great childhood. Indeed, the joys and comforts of my own upbringing have shaped me and my understanding of the world in ways beyond count.

And when I consider my own childhood, there seems to me no other way to describe it than as one long, continuous sunset. Perhaps this feeling is just that, a feeling; a rose-colored, nostalgia-tinged caricature of my early years. But, on the other hand, perhaps not.

Perhaps this nostalgia of mine is not romanticism run amok, but instead the “truest index of my upbringing,” to borrow words from Lewis. Indeed, sorrows and imperfections aside, I feel like this characterization is most true to the heart of what my childhood actually was. As though every moment and memory of my youth is clothed in the warm light of a setting sun—Sunday evenings baking bread over a charcoal fire with my father and sister; going on family walks through the wood of this world with our dogs; large family gatherings at my uncle’s home; and maybe most potently, Sunday evening song services at our local church.

From the first to the last, all these dear childhood memories are touched with a golden hue, casting shadows far beyond themselves to a reality far greater, realer, and more beautiful. Though, I feel as though Sunday evening song services occupy a place unto themselves. I am by no means a competent singer (in fact, I was gently ‘released’ from junior choir several years early for this very reason—a story for another time, I’m afraid). Nonetheless, I love to sing; I love to sing unto the Lord; and above all, I love to sing unto my Savior with my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Growing up, there was one hymn in particular that we typically saved for last on Sunday evenings, simply titled “Sunset.” Some years later, I often find myself singing the first verse now and again:

“When shadows grow long in the evening,

When birds wing their way back home,

I get a heavenly feeling;

It’s sunset and I’m going home.

God paints the clouds in the evening sky,

To show me the way to the palace on high,

And stars mark the pathway lest my feet should roam,

  It’s sunset and I’m going home.”

That Old Ache

I fully realize that not everyone had a great childhood, or even a good one. While there is a difference between good and great, I sense that the gulf existing between good and bad is far wider and more treacherous. Perhaps your childhood is marked not by the the light of a setting sun, but rather by storm clouds, sleet, and many dark nights.

Though in either case, that old ache yet persists, does it not? Doubtless we sensed it from early childhood, no matter our circumstances. Some weight in our souls, a longing without name; a cry within the howling infinite of our innermost-being that testified to the truth that God “has put eternity into man’s heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Without Him, our souls remained utterly restless. And when the Lord saved us, did we not finally taste and see the One to whom all the sunset-shadows kept pointing?

All of life is as the setting of the sun—a gradual closing of the curtain as night falls upon this age. A groaning of all creation itself in anticipation of a new, unending day: “But according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (1 Peter 3:13).

When the shadows begin to grow long in the evening sky, do not despair. If you are the Lord’s, this world was never your home to begin with: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

Rather, follow these shadows and longings to the feet of Him who is the remedy for every ache in our hearts. For in a short time the sun will set on each of our lives, and with joy we will say to ourselves, “I’ve got a heavenly feeling; the way has been long and hard, but now it’s sunset and I’m finally going home.” And when we at long last see Him for the first time and hear those words,—“Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Master”—every ache shall then be healed and every longing satisfied. On that day, we will at last step into the light to which our lifelong nostalgia only dimly pointed—we’ll finally be home.

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Photo by Andrey Svistunov, Unsplash