Religion Beyond Cliché

Clichés, as insufferable as they are, exist because they generally express things that are true. The most unfortunate thing about clichés is that, with prolonged exposure, they lose their effectiveness: we not only take the truth for granted, but begin to doubt its accuracy to begin with. This, as I see it, is one of the chief weaknesses of religion. Revolutionary ideas become Sunday-school platitudes, first disdained and then ignored entirely. (This goes some way towards explaining why, in a society permeated with Christian symbolism and mores, Christianity itself is not taken the least bit seriously. Granted, we've mostly ignored the teachings of Christ — "love thy neighbor", hmm? — for the last two thousand years, but at least there was a time when the religion itself was taken seriously.)

Occasionally we encounter situations that expose to us the very real truth behind the cliché: like a character in a Flannery O'Connor story, we are shocked into seeing the true nature of things, if only for a moment. Let us assume that it is better to seek unpleasant truth than to be contented with comfortable falsehood. (Only a hedonist could prefer the latter.) It is therefore beneficial to seek situations that lead to those experiences that make us more aware of reality, and likewise to avoid those things that keep us comfortably oblivious.

What is reality? From a Christian perspective, the ultimate — and indeed, the only — reality is that of God's love for us. (Come to think of it, this may apply to some other religions as well. But I won't make claims on behalf of other belief systems.) How, then, are we to become more aware of this? There are many arguments to be made for asceticism, for conscious renunciation of worldly pleasures. I suggest that the ascetic life, if it is one's vocation, is a good and noble calling; certainly we all "must achieve the character, and acquire the skills, to live much poorer than we do", as Mr Berry so admirably puts it. But it is clearly not the case that every man should flee to the monastery, or to the hermitage. What, then, is the course of action for he who is not called to seek God by himself? I hope to think about this further.