BOOK REVIEW: Sarah Clarkson’s ‘Reclaiming Quiet’ Will Deepen Your Faith & Refresh Your Soul
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What do I feel when it’s quiet?
This is the simple question I’ve asked myself time and time again while reading Sarah Clarkson’s latest book Reclaiming Quiet: Cultivating A Life Of Holy Attention. And it is a question accompanied by answers I am rarely (if ever) satisfied with.
When I am honest with myself, (and it is really, truly, and very quiet), there is often a startling sense of sadness and a tinge of anxiety I am unconsciously trying to push away. A shadow of heaviness I’d rather not acknowledge looms over my thoughts and I am cloaked in a weariness I can’t seem to shake no matter how long I’ve slept the night before. It is not just my body that is tired. It is my mind. My emotions. My very spirit.
Of course, I don’t think it’s any secret that many of us live in a too-fast-paced society that’s slowly, steadily draining our souls and weighing heavy on our hearts. With the minute-by-minute news updates, all too concerning headlines, mindless social media scrolling and — oh wait, the actual real life demands and responsibilities we are attending to off-screen — it can all very easily start to feel like too much. And it can all very well be too much.
If we are a brave enough to do the inner work to confront that which we’d rather not see, it can feel as if we are powerless to combat the modern epidemic in which we find ourselves; thankfully, however, we bear everything we need to push back against this very present darkness right inside our own selves — and this is precisely what Clarkson shows us in her all too timely, potent book.
Within the first chapter, I became acquainted with the reality of quiet, both what it reveals in me and what it asks of me. Clarkson writes:
“It might as well be said up front that when we step beyond the bright, frenzied circles of our distraction into the dark, waiting space of quiet, we end up meeting two people. The first is our own self, stripped, our need and fear in a raw welter upon our bare skin. Sometimes in quiet, the chill nakedness of our discontent and shame, our fear and desire, become plain to us in a way that leaves us almost breathless with dismay. There’s a real sense in which the choice to be silent ushers us into the presence of the things noise obscures for us most of the time: the inescapable nature of our frailty, the dreams we have lost, the hovering possibility of grief, our pervasive failure. To be quiet can feel like stepping into the presence of death.
“Except for the fact that love has mapped the wilderness and waits at its heart; for the second person we meet in our quiet is God.”
Throughout Reclaiming Quiet, Clarkson argues that every christian is called to a pursuit of quiet, both for the nurturing of our own souls, self-awareness, and inner world, and for our relationships with Christ and others. We would do well to pay attention to what’s at work in our hearts, not just for our own benefit, but for the sake of those around us as well. Cultivating quiet then, is not a selfish pursuit reserved for “introverts” or those with extra time to fill; it is a lifeline that directly links and anchors us to Christ.
Initially, this message of quiet resonated effortlessly with me. Of course I long for quiet in a world that’s never not yelling. Practically, however, I began to struggle in a tension I’ve come to realize will always be present at least in some capacity because I am a fallen human living in a fallen world and I will never not have to choose what is good and true over what the world incessantly pulls me toward. I will never not have to fight to put my smartphone down and replace it with scripture, a book, or any sort of soul-nourishing pursuit. I will never not have to reorient my life to its Maker.
Truly a work of exploration, this was not a book in which I found a “how to” guide or a lecture on how self-discipline will lead me to a life of quiet. (Although, you will find some practical, helpful suggestions in many chapters.) This book felt more like an understanding friend; for it was written by a fellow mother struggling to find a moment of silence amidst the daily demands of life we can’t — and are not called to — abandon.
But this is also not a book that shies away from the deep yearning in all of us for more. Clarkson acknowledges that “there will never not be a crisis” in the world. Our work, both in our homes and our vocations, will never be done. And while we work to stay present in our lives, we also must learn to cultivate a quiet in the midst of it all that both produces and feeds a longing for more.
In Reclaiming Quiet, Clarkson writes about a holy hunger that (rightfully) haunts us throughout the whole of our lives. She points her readers toward a gentle defiance to our current culture of despair and distraction and panic and encourages us to cultivate what is good in the midst of a tumultuous world; to plant and tend and love as if the looming darkness does not have the final word. It is a book that will both challenge you and help to heal an ache you may have had trouble identifying, but nonetheless have felt your whole life. And it is a book that will help you see the divine in the ordinary.
“I truly believe it’s amidst our ordinary stuff that the divine affection cradling our lives is both revealed and refreshed: in our fierce little acts of kindness, in our humble creations, in moments of intricate and miniature beauty or words offered like water in the tiny deserts of our individual loneliness,” Clarkson writes in chapter 4.
“…But our pilgrim state, however painful it often feels, is actually a life-giving condition, one meant to reveal to us the greater good for which we were so lovingly created. In quiet we find not just our own nameless hunger but a presence reaching out to us from beyond the walls of this world. Quiet echoes with eternity; it thrums with the music of the world we’ve always secretly desired but have only just begun to imagine.”
If we are brave enough to pursue quiet, it will inspire us to live a more fulfilling life. It will call us to a higher way of both seeing and being. And it will call us to a kingdom not of this world.
This is a book for both the avid reader longing for quiet and the struggling reader who is unsure of the value in quiet. Within the pages of Reclaiming Quiet you will find a helpful friend, inviting you into a rhythm of life that is much less rushed, but no less potent — complete with a cup of tea, of course, because there is (probably) no Clarkson that wouldn’t recommend a cup of tea to accompany a moment of quiet.
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