The Monk Downstairs

Reading this book was perfect peace. It was eating mangoes in the kitchen on a sunny saturday morning; the poignant kiss I have yet to feel on my lips; it was everything operating on schedule and with ease; grace on pages; courage understated; the last and best thing, saved just for me.

Tim Farrington's gift of subtlety in rendering this delicate story, remarkably and refreshingly uncomplicated, but still generous in its beckoning, slayed me with hope. Odd to find hope upon discovering fault lines in your own heart. So staggeringly simple to understand, again, that true love is bravery in the mundane. That God's gifts to us are the barely perceptible moments something changes and you can hardly say what it is, but the trajectory of your intentions and you desires are in synch with the truest version of who you are. And suddenly there is no argument. The necessary but dreaded push-and-pull of your existence, the mechanism given you to ensure eventual and effortlessly firing synapses, gives way to rightness. There you are.

I was more than a little taken with the heroine's ex-monk lover, so frank and unpretentious. So wise about God and His tendency toward deafening silence in our crises-- engineered to help those who want to, hear Him more distinctly. So earthy and basic. Uncompromising. Intolerant of falsity and nicety, but utterly diplomatic. Sexual, contemplative. Wanting, but unneedy in that want.

I loved that Farrington understood that his story did not need the seemingly requisite plot twists to endear his characters to a reader's intellect and instinct. He understood that making the decision to not be false and posture at the hollow ascetism of refusal is engaging and complete in itself. Once these characters knew they wanted each other, there was no need to suffer that want. And when they hit snags, there was acknowledgment, and the warmth of deeper intimacy that can accompany acknowledgment if it is allowed.

I know it wasn't the point, but it made the story I'm living seem anemic and wan, but that is my story. Who am I to despise small seeds? From the book I learned that ripening fruit that is born of silence takes time. Patience, Kate. Who knows what will be unearthed if you are willing to wait?