Why Should Christians Know the Word ‘Fernweh’?

Have you ever noticed how often you read that sentence? The Germans have a word for everything, and if they don’t, they’ll make one up on the spot. Such is the case with fernweh. Fernweh is that other type of sickness.

What Is Fernweh?

Fernweh is a combination of two words. Fern, which means distance (not houseplant), and wehe which means ache, misery, or sickness. Combine the two, and you have the concept of having an ache for a faraway place. It’s a “far woe.”

It’s a word that is often used for travel. If you have the travel bug—the desire to go someplace that you’ve never been before then you are experiencing fernweh. Perhaps this is the longing for a vacation. Or to go someplace novel. But it’s more than this. It’s not joyful. It’s painful.

Fernweh is more than the curiosity I experience when I explore an old home. It’s not the desire to open every door and search every nook and cranny for a portal to Narnia. It’s being saddened when none of them lead to Narnia. Fernweh is being homesick for a place that you’ve never been.

Is this longing pointing us to something greater?

The Apologetic of Fernweh

One of the chapters in C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity is about hope. While hope propels us to look forward to an eternal world, it’s not escapism. As Lewis notes, some of the most hopeful people are also the most helpful people in this life. Hope identifies the deep longings of our hearts. As Lewis says, “The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy” (pg. 135).

When these things do not satisfy us as we thought they might, we have a couple of options. The fool’s way is to blame the things themselves. We can blame our spouse for not fulfilling what we thought they ought to be for us and keep foolishly pursuing that “one thing” or person that will finally fulfill us.

We can take a different path, equally foolish, and become cynical and jaded and “see through” everything. Such a one becomes a realist. He gives up hoping for foolish things of children. Curiosity withers. Drawers and doors are no longer explored. Narnia is relegated to a world of dreams and fiction. That’s the best path, I suppose, if there is no such thing as a better world. But what if it’s true?

This is where we are introduced to one of Lewis’ most famous quotes. He outlines a third option—the correct option—for treating these unfulfilled longings. Though he doesn’t use the word, Lewis is asking, “What do we do with fernweh?” He says,

“The Christian says, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probably explanation is that I was made for another world.’ (pgs. 136-137)

The reality is that my fernweh isn’t about a vacation. It’s about Narnia. It’s about that other world which I was made for.

Fernweh is Ecclesiastes 3:11. Solomon observed that everything has a season. Winter doesn’t last. But then again, neither does Spring. Does anything last? What Solomon realizes is that “God has set eternity on the hearts of men,” but it’s not fulfilled in this world. Nothing “under the sun” can fulfill those longings. As Lewis noted in Mere Christianity, these unfilled longings point to something deeper. Something which can only be satisfied “over the sun.”

Why Christians Should Know This Word?

It’s okay if you never learn this word. And it’s okay if you never learn to pronounce it correctly. If you want to pronounce it in a Southwestern Missouri way, then just try saying “fern” (like the plant) and “way” (like ‘you’re going the wrong way!”). But if you want to get some good German in there, it would sound a bit like saying fee + Aaron + vee, really fast and with a hint of anger.

What is important is that we understand this concept of longing and how it leads us to another world. As Lewis shows us, there is great apologetic value in this concept. If the gospel is true, and it is, then this means people all around us are going to have various seasons when they hit the wall with their desire. They’ll either fall into cynicism or give themselves over to the pleasure after pleasure. Through God’s grace working in their life, they’ll hit a place where they will experience fernweh. And when this happens, we get the blessing of pointing them to that other world.

This also should inform some of our art. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia does this beautifully. It subtly introduces us to that longing. It opens us up to the possibility of another world. And leaves us thinking, “I wish there was a Narnia…” We should do whatever we can to excite these desires and point them to Christ.

Fernweh is also helpful for us as believers because it reminds us that we are made for a different world. One that is very much like this one—but one where these desires will find fulfillment. It reminds us that “our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:21) and invites us to “seek the things that are above” (Colossians 3:1).

Someday both heimweh (homesickness) and fernweh (far sickness) will be no more. We will be perfectly fulfilled in Christ. Our faith will become sight, and painful longing will be no more.

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