Friday, April 8, 2016

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.

Benedict Option
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.