If you thought Rod Dreher was a bit of a Puritan, you’re not entirely right:
“The hunger for strangeness” — that’s a great phrase, isn’t it? It is interesting to observe how often the impulse to suppress it arises in human culture, always at the hands of a moralistic idea in power, an idea that distrusts sensuality as nothing more than a temptation away from the Truth. Let me clarify that I believe sensuality can be a temptation away from Truth … but it also can be an avenue towards Truth. In Orthodox Christian worship, the incense, the icons, the vestments, the singing — it’s all meant to reveal God to us, and to prepare our hearts to receive Him. The reason for feasting and fasting in traditional Christianity is to learn to rejoice in the gifts of God — of bread, of wine, of meat and fruit — while also learning not to be overcome by our pleasure in these created things.
The Dish 