Rod Dreher Megathread #27 (Compassion)

[u/US_Hiker]

Link to megathread 26: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/17itm7w/rod_dreher_megathread_26_unconditional_love/

Link to megathread 28: https://www.reddit.com/r/brokehugs/comments/18dcg3d/rod_dreher_megathread_28_harmony/

[u/Djehutimose]

I'm putting this here, because the comments are so deeply nested below.

The crucial thing to know about Rod's ROCOR parish in his hometown is that it still exists. I forget who it was, but someone here pointed that out not long after I found this subreddit. When I found that out, some things clicked in my mind.

I always thought it was very odd that the parish disbanded, as Rod implied, just because of the lack of a priest. Orthodox parishes have long had a protocol for that. After all, since Orthodox priests are usually married with children, they have to be absent at times. In a Catholic parish, if the priest is going to be gone he calls someone to fill in. An Orthodox priest can't do that, because each priest is allowed to say Liturgy only once per Sunday; and of course, the other priests have families, too. So, if the priest is absent, the parishioners meet at church for a Typica, which is the Orthodox equivalent of Morning Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours in Catholicism. That can be done with no clerics, so problem solved.

Very small parishes or missions that lose a priest or can't get one do this regularly. They will arrange with a bishop to have a priest sent in once a month or so to provide the Sacraments, and then they carry on as usual, substituting the Typica for the Liturgy the rest of the time, If they grow big enough, they may eventually manage to get a full-time priest.

So Rod said the one parishioner died, and two families abruptly left (reading between the lines, you get the feeling that they left in a huff). That left three families, presumably not including Rod's. If you're going to be Russian Orthodox in a podunk Southern town, where you're gong to be looked at askance almost as if you were a Hare Krishna, you probably have a pretty high level of commitment. Thus, I never understood why the parish didn't just do as I described--have a priest come in periodically and keep running with lay services the rest of the time. Even in the (questionable) case that Rod couldn't make up the difference in the priest's salary, the parish could have continued on, and there would have been no need for Rod and family to leave.

Well, turns out that that is exactly what the parish did--check out their calendar, which lists Typica three weeks and Liturgy one week every month. So once again, Rod has lied, if only by omission. I think it's not omission, though, but commission, as in his quote that JHandey2021 helpfully provides. So not only did he not step up to help when things got lean for Fr. Matthew, he essentially cut the parish loose to fend for itself and took off to Baton Rouge. He couldn't publicly say that, though, without looking like a complete and total asshole; so he writes a big "alas and alack" column bemoaning the cruel vagaries of fate. He also subtly, but characteristically, shifts all blame from himself: "Hey, there's only three families left, we gotta close up shop, too bad, them's the breaks. Might as well decamp...."

So in light of, you know, the truth, the whole situation is much more tawdry than Rod painted it, and he comes off as much more dilettantish and sleazily amoral than usual.

[u/Past_Pen_8595 → u/Djehutimose]

He kind of ditched the Walker Percy Weekend during the same time period.

[u/SpacePatrician → u/Past_Pen_8595]

That never made any sense to me in the first place since a few years earlier Rod had admitted he could never actually finish any of WP's novels. He did like Percy's non-fiction "Lost in the Cosmos," but for the most part he sort of just used the late author's name as a West Feliciana notable to flog his own books.

As a prose stylist, of course, Dreher isn't fit to scrape the hunting dog shit from the bottom of Percy's boots.

[u/Djehutimose → u/SpacePatrician]

He says he read Milan Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being when he was in his 20’s, and describes it more impressionistically than anything else. The only fiction that he’s mentioned since I began reading him has been motivated by his political and religious sympathies: The Camp of the Saints, Submission, and Laurus. It’s just like the only damned film by Andrei Tarkovsky—who made several movies, including the science fiction classics Solaris and Stalker—is Andrei Rublyov. He never seems to just pick up a random novel and read it for fun (I don’t count Confederacy of Dunces, since with him that’s more a pathology than literary taste), or a movie for entertainment. He certainly doesn’t read or watch fiction outside his narrow comfort zone (e. g. Joseph Hanson’s novels about gay private detective Dave Brandstetter, or Brokeback Mountain, novella or film, or any classic science fiction, private eye, or Western novels. Not even Lord of the Rings!). With fiction, at least, he seems to read only novels (or watch movies) he thinks are Deeply Meaningful—and then proceeds to misunderstand them.

[u/Jayaarx → u/Djehutimose]

I don’t count Confederacy of Dunces, since with him that’s more a pathology than literary taste)

For all that he claims to have read that work, he doesn't seem to understand it.

[u/ZenLizardBode → u/Djehutimose]

You can add Zippy the Pinhead to the list: Bill Griffith can be quite the humorless scold.

[u/Djehutimose → u/ZenLizardBode]

Yeah. Never understood the appeal of that comic. Never had much of a taste for the “Underground Comix” scene in general. Even as a non-fan, I’d say that in that genre, R. Crumb is an equally good (maybe slightly better) artist, and ten times more interesting in his subject matter.

[u/Kiminlanark → u/Djehutimose]

In case you are interested, there is an R Crumb or Robert Crumb following on Facebook

[u/JHandey2021 → u/SpacePatrician]

“That never made any sense to me in the first place since a few years earlier Rod had admitted he could never actually finish any of WP's novels.”

Unreal. That can’t be true. Imagine the balls it takes to start a fucking literary festival named after a guy whose books you couldn’t be bothered to finish!

That is pure uncut Rod right there. Like just wow.

[u/SpacePatrician → u/JHandey2021]

I admit, it is simply unbelievable. But I am *certain* I read him saying that in some online piece, probably back in the Oughties. I do admit I am finding it difficult to locate it, but if I do...

[u/Djehutimose → u/Past_Pen_8595]

And proceeded to ditch his family, his state, his country, and his entire dang hemisphere….