S11 #13 - From Nostalgia to Hüzün - Rethinking Our Free-Religious Path - A thought for the day

The full text of this podcast with all the links mentioned in it can be found in the transcript of this edition, or at the following link:

https://andrewjbrown.blogspot.com/2026/01/from-nostalgia-to-huzun-rethinking-our.html

Please feel free to post any comments you have about this episode there.

Opening Music, "New Heaven", written by Andrew J. Brown and played by Chris Ingham (piano), Paul Higgs (trumpet), Russ Morgan (drums) and Andrew J. Brown (double bass) 

Thanks for listening. Just a reminder that the texts of all these podcasts are available on my blog. You'll also find there a brief biography, info about my career as a musician, & some photography. Feel free to drop by & say hello. Email: caute.brown[at]gmail.com

Transcript

A short “thought for the day” offered to the Cambridge Unitarian Church as part of the Sunday Service of Mindful Meditation  

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In his largely autobiographical book, Istanbul: Memories and the City, the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk reflects on the Turkish word hüzün. He uses it to name a poignant cultural emotion of shared inadequacy and loss, tied to memory and history, that is felt felt when living among the ruins of a once great empire. It evokes a sense of failure in a earlier form of life, and also speaks of a retreat into oneself. Pamuk saw hüzün as defining much of Istanbul’s culture following the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922. It is, in short, a kind of nostalgia for what no longer exists.

Our present-day world is increasingly marked by nostalgia for what no longer exists. In the UK it coloured the vote to leave the European Union, with its longing for the former power and status of Britain and its Empire. In the USA it lies behind the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement; in Europe it appears in Viktor Orbán’s dream of an “illiberal democracy”; in Russia it informs Putin’s appeal to “Ancient Rus” and lies behind his attempt to restore a lost unity of lands. Similar patterns can be seen in many other countries.

My basic point is this: as the post-WWII national and international order unravels, bringing grief, loss, and longing for the “old days”, none of us can avoid dealing with feelings — whether our own or others’ — of nostalgia for what no longer exists. And this does not only operate at global or national levels. It flows right down into local Unitarian, liberal, free-religious communities such as our own.

Our late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century forebears believed that, because of their commitment to reason in matters of religion, science and politics, the Unitarian position would ultimately prevail. Confidence was so high that the leading Unitarian theologian James Martineau (1805–1900) could write in 1890 that, if Unitarians used well their critical, philosophical, social, poetical and devotional powers, they would “gain [their] destined ascendancy over the mind of Christendom” (Essays, Reviews and Addresses, Vol. 1, London, Longman Green and Co., 1890, p.14).

This was always optimistic, but in one sense Martineau was right: many key Unitarian ideas did become central norms and values in our culture. The problem was that, as the twentieth century unfolded, these norms became secular. People no longer needed to belong to any religious community at all, not even Unitarian ones, in order to affirm them. For a while we retained a respected, if minor, place in British religious and cultural life, but those days are gone, and we now have to reassess radically how we are to go forward in a rapidly changing world.

Inevitably, this has made us nostalgic not only for the fantasy of destined ascendancy, but also for that later, minor, yet secure place in British culture. The mood of nostalgia for what no longer exists is truly upon us, as almost every other Unitarian, or more generally liberal or free-religious gathering will testify. I have felt it myself, nursing a pint and a plate of chips in the marvellous buildings of former Unitarian churches — such as those in Nottingham and Exeter — which are now pubs. Sitting there among the still persisting ruins of a once vital liberal religious tradition, I confess to feeling deeply the kind of poignant cultural emotion and spiritual sense of inadequacy and loss, tied to memory and history, of which Pamuk so movingly wrote.

I felt it, even more intensely, during the 534 days of the Covid-19 lockdowns, working, eating and sitting quite alone in the empty buildings of the Cambridge Unitarian Church, at times almost overwhelmed by a sense of loss and grief.

Since 2020, however, I have begun to learn something vitally important from the Sufi tradition’s understanding of nostalgia as hüzün — namely, a way of taking the feeling of loss and grief for what no longer exists, and turning it into a creative, inquiring, free and liberative way of moving into a better way of being in the world.

In Sufi usage, it appears that hüzün does not really mean “depression”, but rather a spiritual sorrow that can be cultivated and used as part of a spiritual path. Nostalgia (literally “homesickness”) is not despair over a lost connection with God, the divine and the sacred, but rather a longing for a renewed connection with them. Hüzün is a sign that the heart is awake and turned again towards the Beloved, rather than retreating into itself and its sorrows. For this reason, some early Sufi discourses speak of sorrow as a necessary tool of the spiritual traveller, even one of the highest devotional practices, despite the Qurʾān’s repeated call: “do not grieve!”

Hüzün also fosters moral/ethical clarity. It allows a person, and a tradition, properly to explore and process feelings of remorse, humility and watchfulness. Loss and sorrow thus become tools for self-accounting (muhāsaba), keeping us honest about our heedlessness and genuine faults. In this way hüzün protects against spiritual complacency by keeping the heart open, tender and modest, and so it is fully compatible with deep faith and true entrusting. Additionally, some modern Sufi-inspired writers understand hüzün as aiding the development of compassionate solidarity: a way of transforming sorrow at injustice and suffering into moral and ethical energy that encourages deeper spiritual devotion, service to others and perseverance.

All this helps us distinguish two kinds of nostalgia. Restorative nostalgia, which we must avoid, tries to rebuild the lost world as it imagined it once was; while reflective nostalgia — as hüzün — can help transform grief and loss into a new and healthier way of being that seeks to build a better, more appropriate and compassionate world.

As I have indicated, restorative nostalgia lies at the heart of many recent national and religious revivals. It takes itself far too seriously and knows only two plot lines: a mythical return to origins, and a search for those to blame for the loss of former glory. We must not, cannot, pursue this path, which is being followed by too many people around us and, alas, sometimes even within our own communities.

Instead, we must choose the path of reflective nostalgia — nostalgia understood as hüzün — which takes our grief and sorrow seriously, but transforms them into new possibilities. It is a way that reveals joy and sorrow, gain and loss, expansion and contraction are not opposites but necessary counterparts working together in a dynamic, creative, inquiring, free and liberative spiritual path (jiyū shūkyō) that does not take itself too seriously, and which can be flexible, ironic, humorous, compassionate and playful.

So, as in the coming weeks when we, as a local community, begin properly to talk together about our future, we must resist the temptation to engage in restorative nostalgia, with its myth of golden days and the belief that we can simply restore the lost, old ways unchanged. Instead, we must embrace the path made possible by the form of reflective nostalgia called hüzün, and so find a way to reconnect with our liberal, free-religious tradition’s deepest spiritual roots and help them, once again, to bring forth green shoots in a changed and still rapidly changing world.

The future of liberal, free-religion depends upon us succeeding in walking the path of hüzün.