I'm about to share a quote that caught my attention. I want to write about it but I also want to take the opportunity here to call out other people to also write about it, either the quote itself or if you prefer, you can even rip into the points that I'm making, attempting to berate them, clarify them, or purify them from the defiling touch of my decrepit pirate-deacon hands. I specifically want to invite Spaceman and Talon Shepherd because I'm touching on a few things that we have to sum degree talked about and brainstormed about already in common.
Here's what George Orwell, famous author of the book "Nineteen Eighty-Four" said which provoked me: "It seems rather mean to go to HC [Holy Communion] when one doesn't believe, but I have passed myself off for pious & there is nothing for it but to keep up with the deception." - George Orwell
My first impression of the quote is that it sounds like something that one of our contemporaries would say, the comedian-actor, Russell Brand. It sounds like it was meant, perhaps, for nothing more than a laugh; however, I think it cleverly draws attention to an important facet of human nature which threatens us all. That's why I like it. That's not to say I like it, that is to say, the substance of it, but I do enjoy the awakening and the stirring that it brings as it is offered. It provokes people to a point of becoming agitated, in order to get them to think. Why do we really do the things we do? At least that is what I perceive the purpose of Orwell is here. This quote highlights that it is a grievous attack and denial of one's own human nature when a person decides to be apathetic or half-hearted in concern over doing the right thing, especially when it relates to them personally, because there really is something to it; similarly, there is no compelling reason for one to glory in having settled for what one perceives to be a deception, because it is obviously the case that we live in a world of real purpose, a teleological world, and since the acceptance of a known deception is a blatant denial of the purpose and end of reason, along with being a surprising and counter-intuitive denial of the sanctity of man's natural propensity to explore creation with the senses, this quote is meant to spur us on to being awake; it is a dark, descending, devolution into the animal kingdom when one denies, like this quote does, their own will to proactively choose and conclude things and to believe things, and so this quote highlights an attack on human nature - the threat of being half-human, to be alive but not really living.
When I first read this quote it immediately reminded me of one of the themes some friends and I have recently been brainstorming about in an attempt we are making to depict an idea by way of group art. I can't remember who had mentioned the idea, I think it was Spaceman, but we were all thinking about it in our own different ways, not all that concretely. Our theme was that sometimes people become devoted to unfulfilling commitments to unfulfilling things, and this tends to shrink their souls a bit; yet somehow people decide, in human weakness, to keep-on-keeping-on in a kind of mediocrity and unfulfilled boredom. Perhaps people do this because they simply don't know of or can't imagine any real alternative that could fare them well situationally, relationally, spiritually, etc. -whatever state of realm it may be that they are in which is negatively oppressing and perplexing them.
But, although we can find any number of means to excuse it, it seems like Orwell in this quote is comfortable with promulgating mass boredom, which is obviously a sort of pseudo-humanity as every child knows; its being content to be alive but not to really live. It seems like Orwell is comfortable to know and perceive purpose, but to stop there; to look at an apple, and think it not worth tasting. He seems to be apathetic to exploring with any depth what it would mean for a person to exemplify a real piety.
Only a sleepwalker decides like that. They feign life walking into rooms aimlessly, looking at walls like they are pictures and pictures like they are walls. Sleepwalking is outcasting a conscious human will to recess. Saying, like Orwell has said, 'that piety is a thing that is merely intended to be passed off for a deception', which feels like a statement that a sleepwalker would make right before he resolves on the pig chambers as his resting place at the end of an aimless wandering in the dark. "Nothing for it but to settle for a pig sty." This is something that can be funny, but only funny, because everyone experiences that pig stys are nasty places.
Eyes are made to see, and Orwell's eyes are seemingly open; but eyes are also made to perceive, and his are not really. Perception has to do with depth, to acknowledge that there is an up and down, that things have places and that we have places in a real, multi-dimensional 3D world. Orwell is quite content as it relates to the practice of taking communion to settle for doing it in a merely 2D ceremonial kind of way. He says, 'there's nothing in the practice of communion, it is the deception of piety-this is where its at!'
He admits in the first part of his statement (which he seems to have forgotten about immediately after writing) that it seems "mean" to be partaking in communion when you don't believe', which is like saying that, 'it feels like the world is 3D', but it is strange because of what he follows that with. He essentially says, 'I'm comfortable and fine with living a 2D life, and having a 2D philosophical take on life,' which is an immensely unadventurous, risk-averse, and boring attitude to have about it. Its like going to a theme park and deciding to just ride the toddlers quarter pony machine. This spirit is antithetical to what Christ was about, that is, to live a half full life, which does not care to take seeking seriously and does not care to dream finding rewarding.
"I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." - John 10:10
As Christians we don't have to shy away from the reality of things that seem "mean", but we can begin to explore what meanness is about, and assume that there really is something important about the fact that we are pre-inclined to have moral feelings about things. We can assume the sanctity of creation, and our place in it as dignified human beings exercising moral wills. We don't have to cowardly shy away from the natural qualities and propensities we have as creatures made in the image of God. We get to exercise our humanity, taking care of what appears to be our lot, making good use of our rational and moral faculties to make judgments and have feelings. We get to assume that life means something, that we are intended for something, that it is interesting, that it is of vital concern to concern ourselves in sobriety with what we have been given: the gift of life. We really can legitimately trust and acknowledge the common sense of the real 3D world which is constantly speaking in our ear that things do matter, that we do matter, that choices matter, etc..
This is what led pre-evolutionary scientists to discover most of the greatest modern discoveries in the real world, their assumption that there is purpose in all things. There is a humungous inference that follows from this: that things ought to be and were intended to be discovered and explored through the implementation of active and spirited curiosity (Acts 17:27 comes to mind). It seemed to them, that is the classical scientists, that we live in a world of real, objective purpose. It seemed to them appropriate to take a non-sleepwalker attitude, to take care to purposefully care about things in an exercise of the will, which includes, to our particular interest here, actually taking care to think about this thing we call piety, etc.. It was the engine of the human heart married with intellect, what Thorstein Veblen calls an, "idle curiosity", and what G.K. Chesterton calls "wonder" that propelled the pre-evolutionary scientists to seek out the riches of the abundance of life. They possessed the realism of a child, a realism which easily and naturally believes that purpose is sanctified, that it is real, and that it is a given.
We must be brave because we are under divine mandate to see light, because it is for our good to enjoy light and to propagate light. Christ said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have life more abundantly." That's hopeful. That's expansive. Perceiving this makes piety possible, relevant, and enjoyable. Don't settle for a tired, ephemeral, sleep-walker's take on piety, instead be encouraged to spiritedly explore religious realities with this admonition, " Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you." - Matthew 7:7
A person who knocks on the door of the house of Piety and then decides to up and walk away without caring to see if anyone might come to the door and to wonder who might come? Is just a disillusioned old man captivated by the deceitfulness of youthful passions, holding onto a false security that a 2D triviality of adolescence will fulfill him, finding it eternally funny to ding-dong-ditch houses, inconveniencing everyone with carelessness in excess.
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