The phenomenon in the Catholic blogosphere of “The Benedict Option” was interesting. I think it’s mostly over now, because I’ve seen less copycats coming up with other “[Saint] Options.” Most who came up with various “options” focused heavily on Rod Dreher’s choosing the right saint to imitate for the right reasons. Most of them thought a “Benedictine” option just seemed too behind-the-walls, or something. Should laity really imitate monks? So I saw options in imitation of Dominic, Jeremiah, Josemaria, and others — and, to trump them all, Mary. And, I would add, all of the saint-imitating proposals were worth the read.
But, most of the counter-proposals, I think, missed the “why” of the “success” of the idea of the Benedict Option (and it mostly still is just an idea). The real kicker to the thing was the word option. Today people feel stuck in a secular and acedia rich rut, without option, and Dreher was giving us real steps to take to live differently (or so we thought). And, speaking from the perspective of fathers, we wanted some path “out” of the way things are that was radical enough to change the drudgery of clocking in and out for a paycheck to support a rapidly disintegrating family. The book itself is worth reading, but it is still a broader philosophy. I think what people really thought, or hoped for, was a tangible escape hatch from the way of the world today.
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Examples vary, from the home businesses like the “meatsmithery” of Brandon and Lauren Sheard and Saint in a Box of Justin and Angela Biance, but the uniting theme is a united economy of home, work, and faith. Others are able to simply work from home — I have friends that are accountants, writers, and copy machine service providers that are able to be a part of home because their office is there. This movement of fathers is a sort of reversal of the title of Alan Carlson’s detailed history of industrialism’s effect on fathers in From Cottage to Workstation; these men are moving from workstation back to some sort of cottage industry, one rooted in a household. Butchering pigs and sending saintly gift boxes are very different, but both are businesses shaped by meta-economic motivations.
The “option” of integrating work and home isn’t bound to one exact pattern, but it is still a rewarding and perhaps necessary effort today. And it is one that requires great imagination and creativity. To regain the world for Christ I don’t think we can gather on the internet or in a conference room to create a grand plan, but I do think that small expressions of big ideas have the possibility to really “grow” culture. For us fathers, it simply must begin with how and why we spend our time providing for our family because they need more than money. We have a lot of work to do.
Wendell Berry, the Benedict Option, and the Vocation of Fatherhood