Following on yesterday's post, we offer here a second excerpt that is ample evidence for why, in a review just in from ForeWord Magazine, The Beauty of Ordinary Things is hailed for its two narrative voices which "weave together in a beautiful étude of humanity ... a song of the soul," why bestselling author Ann Packer exalts the novel as "radiant, mysterious, and deeply moving," and bestselling author Debra Dean says "Harriet Scott Chessman plumbs the mysteries of the spirit and celebrates the quiet grace notes of the earth. The Beauty of Ordinary Things is deep as a prayer."
The following section is from Chapter 15, in the voice of Sister Clare, a young novice at a Benedictine abbey in rural New Hampshire, who is confronting the day-to-day realities of a cloistered existence, and who develops an unexpected bond with the young Vietnam Vet Benny Finn just as she moves toward her day of Commitment:
***
August 10th, 1974, just after Compline
The Eve of the Feast of Saint Clare
Pax
Today I was just straightening up from bending over the phlox,
in the garden outside the parlors, when a title for a poem came
to me: “Here, the Light, Inland.” What will follow? How do
you translate sensations and intuition into something with its
own form and movement? I think I used to know how, but I’m
not sure anymore. The flowers, the fragrance of the earth, my
hands holding the spade, all of it wrapped into something more,
and shot through with the chant’s music, the light shining.
It came to me, as I stood there: could it be that this was the
poem? Could it be that this was the epiphany? Could it be more
than words? And if this, in this instant, was the poem, did I
share in it, more than create it? Is God the poet, then? Human
poets catch bits of the light.
Right then, Benny arrived to help me pull that pathetic garden
into shape. It’s the garden I first started with, years ago,
when I was a hoverer on the threshold. He got to work on the
weeds, while I planned where to put the impatiens.
So — here I am setting down the date for my First Vows. I
have agreed to this with Mother Heloise and Mother Abbess:
January 6th, 1975, Epiphany
I think I can do it. I’ll talk to Mother Heloise more about it
tomorrow, once my family has scattered. I have five months to
prepare as fully as I can. May I hold to this intention!
*
before Matins
1:20 a.m.
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Feast Day, Clare of Assisi
From “The Prayer of Saint Brendan” (one of Benny’s gifts to
me):
“Shall I take my tiny boat across the wide sparkling ocean?
O King of the Glorious Heaven, shall I go of my own choice
upon the sea?
O Christ, will You help me on the wild waves?”
*
Could I have known Benny so well, if I’d met him outside, me in
ordinary clothes and on my own, not in this Enclosure? Could
such trust have grown between us?
Will my life be always filled with tumult and questions? Why must I go on aching for this bond that we already share, as I ache for a naked swim through a tangle of water lilies, or for a house full of children?For more on this radiant book, and its tremendously gifted author Harriet Scott Chessman, check back here tomorrow!
