Benediction
More books like this — like Benediction, by Kent Haruf — please.
More books that:
* Rely on simplicity to convey complexity;
* Demonstrate the intricate connections and bonds that cause people to either lean toward each other or — at their worst — fractiously repel one another;
* Embody, well, embodiment. (I think “embody” is such an interesting word, just as I think “incorporate” is a fascinating word. What does it mean to have life’s truths played out via our physical bodies, our corporal selves?)
Here’s a little excerpt from this capstone to Haruf’s trilogy that takes place in fictional Holt, Colorado. (Plainsong and Eventide are the first and second, although I haven’t read Eventide. Any of these can be read independently, although I can see what a satisfying experience it would be to read them in one go.) The scene: A simultaneously weary and fired-up pastor finds wandering the town at night — while observing others through their home’s windows — to be reassuring and, somehow, edifying:
“People in their houses at night. These ordinary lives. Passing without their knowing it. I’d hoped to recapture something. … The precious ordinary. … I thought I’d see people being hurtful. Cruel. A man hitting his wife. But I haven’t seen that. Maybe all that’s behind the curtains. If you’re going to hit somebody maybe you pull the curtain first.”
“Not necessarily,” replies a police officer who has been summoned to this slightly bizarre and off-putting scene. [I mean, who wants to be creepily stared at through their home’s windows?!]
The pastor continues, “What I’ve seen is the sweet kindness of one person to another. Just time passing on a summer’s night. This ordinary life.”
“Precious ordinary” — that’s what our lives are. Even in the midst of very un-ordinary and trying circumstances — which of course some of us will experience — the juxtaposition of absolutely basic and absolutely extraordinary is what, hopefully, keeps us moving.
{PS: I loved the recurring symbol of offering someone a cup of coffee in Benediction. So much hospitality — or, at times, maybe simple tolerance — in this mundane action.}
#kentharuf #benediction #plainsong #eventide
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