What the Benedict Option is like
If anyone knows what the Benedict Option is like it would be Rod Dreher, the man who invented it and lives it out day after day. So what's the Benedict Option like?
Let's let Rod tell us in his own terms.
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| Luxury hotel on Lake Louise, CA courtesy Rod Dreher |
Isn’t that something, that view? That beer belongs to Peter Leithart, who was sitting to the left of the frame. I was drinking the same kind. What a gorgeous, gorgeous place. A group of us went walking in Johnson Canyon, part of Banff National Park, in the Canadian Rockies. Then we dropped by to see Lake Louise, which is still frozen over. We had a beer at the hotel on the lake.
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Man, did I ever have a great time with these Lutherans up here!
Man, I'll bet you did, Rod! Sign me up for the Benedict Option today!
Banff National Park has got to be one of the most beautiful vacation destinations ever, and you, too, can access it at its most spectacular if you play your cards right.
You just need to make some arrangements there that have a plausible connection to your business or church doings, then, while "thickening" yourself on a delicious craft beer, write off your expenses as tax deductions against your income or business revenue.*
Now, granted, Rod has the original Benedict Option book-to-be-written-somewhen as his hook, so you'll need to develop a derivative Benedict Option Tax Option of your own.
Maybe pretend to write a book about Rod's pretending to write his original Benedict Option book-to-be-written-somewhen, following in his footsteps as he himself followed Dante's on the Dante Trail when he vacationed in beautiful Italy. And then your friends could pretend to write a book about you pretending to write a book, and so forth. Naturally, as you can see above, there will be necessary expenses involved.
Or maybe something entirely different. You're really only limited by your imagination and the gullibility of the IRS.
The main thing to understand is - just as Rod tells us, over and over - the Benedict Option is not about pulling roots out of the ground and eating them raw in a field behind some nameless monastery outside Rump, Indiana like Kwai Chang Caine in Kung Fu. Dude! No way!
No, as you see can plainly see here, the Benedict Option is about cannily harvesting God's blessings as revealed through the U. S. tax code and living large - in praise of Him, of course.
The Benedict Option: Dum vivimus, vivamus, dude!
*Note: nothing in the post is to be construed as offering professional tax counseling. See your own tax professional, and soon! April 15 is almost upon us.
If the Benedict Option is not for you, you could try this symposium The American Conservative is doing in Dallas. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/what-impact-will-the-2016-campaign-have-on-us-foreign-policy-tickets-24035371443?aff=tacwebad
ReplyDeleteYou will find out how much all of them either feel the Bern or are in love with Hillary.
Oh, you mean The American-what-are-those-darn-kids-these-days-most-likely-to-buy-i-know-daniel-why-graduate?-larison-bush-bad-and-that-cool-new-urbanism-and-that-pitiable-guy-with-the-beard-and-Harry-Potter-glasses-all-gender-identities-would-sleep-with-let's-offer-them-that-we'll-clean-up-Conservative? That American Conservative?
ReplyDeleteAs usual it is all about DreRod...Why is he doing this in the middle of Orthodox Lent? What does the Benedict Option say about community ? His priest has a sick wife and a disabled baby and the Church ReRod set up may close for lack of funds.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, I hadn't even thought of that. Is craft beer allowed during Great Lent?
DeleteWhat does the Benedict Option say about community?
DeleteFrom the Benedict Option Dictionary:
conmunity (n)
con·mu·ni·ty
1) the moralistic appeal to a group of people who live in the same area (such as a city, town, or neighborhood) while hypocritically ignoring them whenever your base desires can only be sated by luxury goods and services found at a distance
Synonyms: fauxcalism
Until the book is published there will not be a firm definition of the BO. There will only be anti-definitions, explanations by the working boy as to why the definition offered by various learned commentators just misses the mark. Why? Because there are profits to make and books to sell down the road! If he admitted that someone else might have caught the gist of his Amazing Concept then there might be a few dozen people who would not buy his book.
ReplyDeleteI wonder, will he include the recipe for some monastic craft beer in the flyleaf of the "special" first edition printings?
I just checked out Dreher's post, and found this 'splaining about the "small-o orthodoxy" of his View From Your Table to be highly amusing.
ReplyDelete[NFR: I have used soft-focus faces in the background before on VFYTs. I try very hard not to, but there was simply no way to get the shot otherwise. Had this guy been closer, and identifiable, I wouldn’t have taken the shot. — RD]
Apparently a properly done VFYT doesn't include anything from the animal kingdom, including humans. It's a still-life. Which is a perfect image of the Benedict Option. People ruin everything. Those damn Catholics ruined the Catholic Church, those damn Republicans ruined the GOP, etc.
So, Rod's revealed his publisher, in a bleg trying to crowdsource a subtitle. Coming up with a subtitle for his own book is a lot of work for Our Working Boy.
ReplyDeleteRod is having another Walker Percy festival in his town.This is a list of the panelists who you would get to listen to. http://www.walkerpercyweekend.org/panelists/
ReplyDeleteAmong them is Jason Berry. A Journalist who makes generalizations about the Catholic Church and the scandal that would make a Klansman gleam.
http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=830
http://www.themediareport.com/2014/03/05/secrets-of-the-vatican-pbs/
It's entirely possible to see Rod's WP festival as a "keep your enemies closer" gambit. Having flattered and seduced Percy's aging daughter and having kidnapped the Percy history from St. Tammany Parish to his own, the coup de grace remaining is to lovingly indict Percy through the deft application of panelists as a wonderful writer in spite of being a foolish Catholic. One would not be surprised when all is said and done to find an argument for the (essentially Russian Orthodox) Benedict Option lurking in the residue of Percy's Drehery leg-humping.
DeleteRod has announced his publisher, and I can't contain my glee. I tried to post this over there, but it will never get posted. So please know that Rod read it and deleted it:
ReplyDelete"SENTINEL
Overview
Sentinel was established in 2003 as a dedicated conservative imprint within Penguin Group. It publishes a wide variety of right-of-center books on subjects like politics, history, public policy, culture, religion, and international relations. The name Sentinel symbolizes a tough-minded defense of America’s fundamental values and national interests.
Some of Sentinel’s most noteworthy bestsellers include Do the Right Thing and A Simple Christmas by Mike Huckabee; A Patriot’s History of the United States by Larry Schweikart and Michael Allen; An American Son by Senator Marco Rubio; Unintimidated by Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin; The Secret Knowledge by David Mamet; Keeping the Republic by Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana; Roger Ailes: Off Camera by Zev Chafets; The Tyranny of Clichés by Jonah Goldberg; and George Washington’s Secret Six by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger – a runaway New York Times bestseller for more than three months."
***Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Roger Ailes, AND BRIAN F**IN KILMEADE????--ha, ha, ha, the very thing which the BO is supposed to save us from. Does it get any more mainstream MTD than this? Jonah Goldberg? Hahahahahahahahaha.
Oh, Rod. You simply can't write you.
HarveyWB
Per his request, I would have suggested Revenge of the Nerds as a subtitle, but that's just me.
DeleteGiven that Sentinel appears to be a go-to vanity refuge for conservatives (e.g., properties like Mitch Daniels), I still think it cruel of Rod not to have suggested they also check out Erin Manning's currently self-published Telmaj children's series.
And I imagine Jonah Goldberg will pour himself a stiff double with this most recent, Drehery reappraisal of the Sentinel neighborhood.
the (essentially Russian Orthodox) Benedict Option
ReplyDeleteIt would be right and proper for a Russian Orthodox to propose an essentially Russian Orthodox approach to life. (Let the Russian Orthodox judge how well Rod does this.)
But why, then, does Rod hang out with Roman Catholic monks and troll in Roman Catholic waters for his livelihood? The Willie Sutton Option, I suppose.
I don't expect Pope Francis to feature favorably in Rod's book, in particular this paragraph from the just-released apostolic exhortation:
'No family can be fruitful if it sees itself as overly different or “set apart”. To avoid this risk, we should remember that Jesus’ own family, so full of grace and wisdom, did not appear unusual or different from others. That is why
people found it hard to acknowledge Jesus’ wisdom: “Where did this man get all this? Is not
this the carpenter, the son of Mary?” (Mk 6:2-3). “Is this not the carpenter’s son?” (Mt 13:
55). These questions make it clear that theirs was an ordinary family, close to others, a normal part of the community. Jesus did not grow up in a narrow and stifling relationship with Mary and
Joseph, but readily interacted with the wider family, the relatives of his parents and their friends.
This explains how, on returning from Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph could imagine for a whole day
that the twelve-year-old Jesus was somewhere in the caravan, listening to people’s stories and sharing their concerns: “Supposing him to be in
the group of travellers, they went a day’s journey” (Lk 2:44). Still, some Christian families, whether
because of the language they use, the way they act or treat others, or their constant harping on the same two or three issues, end up being seen as remote and not really a part of the community.
Even their relatives feel looked down upon or judged by them. [Amoris Laetitia 182]"
Hah!!!
Delete