"If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolic relation to what will truly satisfy... Almost our whole education has been directed to silence this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modern philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth. And yet it is a remarkable thing that such philosophies of Progress or Creative Evolution themselves bear witness to the truth that our real goal is elsewhere. When they want to convince you that earth is your home, notice how they set about it. They begin by trying to persuade you that earth can be made into heaven, thus giving a sop to your sense of exile in earth as it is. Next, they tell you that this fortunate event is still a good way off in the future, thus giving a sop to your knowledge that the fatherland is not here and now. Finally, least your longing for the transtemporal should awake and spoil the whole affair, they use any rhetoric that comes to hand to keep out of your mind the recollection that even if all the happiness they promised could come to man on earth, yet still each generation would lose it by death... Do what they will, then, we remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy."
- C. S.Lewis, "The Weight of Glory"
There is a lot in this section of Lewis' address which I left out including some examples that, depending on whether or not you have a schoolboy's love for Greek literature, may or may not resonate. I encourage you to read it to see the whole of his thought (you can get a PDF version here).
I want to look at Lewis' idea about destiny and desire. For the Christian it is pretty straightforward, that the experience of salvation creates a transfer of citizenship from earth to heaven (see for example Philippians 3:19-20). If you read that section of scripture though you see more than that change of earthly passport. Those whose citizenship is not heaven have their minds on "earthly things" but we eagerly await the coming of the Savior. Lest we get the idea that this is the ONLY thing though, let's look at the structure of that section of scripture as laid out. It isn't a single proposition but rather a contrast (just like this sentence). "BUT our citizenship is in heaven". Stepping back we see there are two categories in contrast, those who have not as of yet come to a saving relationship with Christ who are described as having their stomach as their god, their shame is their glory, and their mind is set on earthly things. In addressing the believers in Philippi, Paul builds a contrast: BUT OUR citizenship is in heaven. So if those whose citizenship is earth have certain desires this would imply that we should not be this way or as Lewis says "any other good [non-heavenly] must be fallacious". So knowing this what should we do? Here is where we have a tie to the season of Lent.
The Dean of our cathedral talks of Lent as a call to holiness. Now there is a lot to unpack in that little word "holiness" and unfortunately it has come to have a distorted meaning these days. If you want to spend some time a good place to start is here but I'll cut to the chase. Holiness at its core (outside of as applied to God directly) is that of set aside for a special use and in the Judeo-Christian case set aside for the work of God. Admittedly this is a bit of a gloss but it does give us the core. So given our citizenship is in heaven, examining Paul's contrast what we really have is a call to holiness. How do we do that? By not allowing our stomach to be our god (that is, guided simply by base desires), by not having our mind fixed on earthly things. Here again Lewis' words to this point are echos of scripture. Desires in and of themselves are not bad. Desires for heavenly reward or not bad and do not create a mercenary situation. Rather, what are our desires focused on? In settling for here and now we are selling ourselves short because for us there is so much more. Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying this world is of no account and that I have no obligations here. There is an old saying where I am from: "Don't be so heavenly minded that you are of no earthly good". But being citizens of heavenly and trying to put on the mind of Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts our desires have a heavenly connection which should lead us to do good here. The call to holiness then is trying to make sense of all of this and to do it. Desires are not a bad thing in and of themselves and scripture makes statements about God giving us the desires of our heart (with some conditions on how to get there), but looking at totality of the message for Christians it doesn't mean God is a genie granting wishes, rather as we set ourselves apart for service, as we come to make our heavenly citizenship more real, the desires of our heart move toward the desires of God so that there is less and less conflict between OUR desires and God's desires. That is moving towards holiness. It's not giving up things for Lent that add to holiness, but rather trying to look at things in our lives through God's eyes and ask "Is this REALLY what I want to have/do/be?" and if not, why continue in it?
Lewis goes on to talk about how this desire for something else, something "transtemporal, transfinite good" competes with contemporary society and this sets an interesting situation that I don't think he intended to address here but I will take a small stab at it. What about those who aren't Christian? The world structure is set up to try to dissuade people from looking at something other than here. They talk about "heaven is a place on earth", that we just need to wait for people to come around ("heaven can be a place on earth"), and that in the final act go into nihilism and say "well, even if you reach that goal you're still going to die so what's the point in this heaven thing? Just live for now". And yet, even through all of this, there is a desire in humanity for something better. Life can be better. We can treat people better. Better, always better. Things can only be better if there is a standard or goal else how can you make a comparison? But if this desire for better shows up everywhere, how does that happen? Not wanting to debate evolutionary theories here I take what I think would be Lewis' position (probably because it is something I have been thinking about for a while)... the idea of "imago dei", that all mankind bares within the "image of God". Christian and non-Christian alike, we all have this as part of our humanity. It is from here we have this sense of desire for the good, trying to make things better. So even the non-Christian isn't exempt from this sense of longing, this looking for something more in our lives.
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