My Takeaway(s) from Reclaiming Quiet: Cultivating a Life of Holy Attention by Sarah Clarkson
A Chapter-by-Chapter Discussion of the Different Aspects of Quiet
*Because I am reading #ReclaimingQuiet by
from a galley copy, page numbers to the quoted material are absent.Sarah Clarkson’s latest book, Reclaiming Quiet, is yet another beautiful book with lovely prose. Chapter by chapter, she invites the reader to consider the idea of quiet. It turns out that quiet contains many aspects and forms. My sense and discovery of these aspects from her book follow:
Introduction – Kingfisher: Quiet allows an “openness to the presence of God at play in creation, at work in our hearts, directing our ways and drawing us into his story.” This requires the intention of finding spaces of contemplative rest so we can be “rooted in peace beyond the touch of any trouble in this world.” This often means putting away the distraction of our phones or technology.
Chapter 1 – Presence: Practicing quiet as a companion “at first seemed just empty. But soon it became a place I could dwell…” There is a theology that includes “truth, goodness, and beauty.” Where do we discover this quiet place? Can it be found at our kitchen table, a walk in nature, time in our garden, at the coffee shop? The challenge in this chapter is to find spaces of rest by habits and rhythms connected to spaces that feed the interior self.
Chapter 2 – Home: When we first begin to practice quiet, the still spaces away from “noise and screen and distraction…” can feel like a type of abandonment. Life in the age of media “has become a way of life.” How can we manage this distraction to have a more meaningful and peaceful life? If you feel abandoned in the silence, this could possibly be “spiritual exhaustion.” With the practice of quiet and rest, you can find the true voice of God that does not condemn but speaks in the language of love.
Chapter 3 – Peace: We all will have periods of suffering. When sorrow overwhelms, should we consider that our addiction to screens could be speaking anxiety into our minds through scenes of destruction or drawing out feelings of inadequacy? Sarah shares how the images that made her feel inadequate are often overcome by the practice of not reaching for a screen first thing in the morning and also practicing a “similar space of screen-free time before bed, letting my mind wind down to a kind of watchful, deep-breathed hush.” All in an effort to “plant peace” and “cultivate quiet,” to “root myself in a goodness much larger than the furor and tumult I [see] each day in the online world.”
Chapter 4 – Pilgrimage: This chapter focuses on the idea of looking for goodness: “If I cannot find ‘earth crammed with heaven’ in the forced bulb growing in winter on my windowsill, I will not find it in whole fields of blossoms in abandoned, springtime wandering.” Pilgrimages, whether a wander in the woods or a time set aside to walk in the city during lunch hour, can be spaces of quiet that help us notice the little miracles of the world. When we have unrest in our spirit that we “can't quite name,” a quiet space to linger and ponder often sifts and organizes our thoughts. Where are our “Knowings,” as Sarah calls them or “Joy,” as C.S. Lewis called them, the ideas that bring excitement to our hearts? Look for places of quiet to rediscover these joys and knowings that were often first discovered in childhood.
Chapter 5 – Ox-Cart Man: Quiet can help us yield ourselves to our stories, to be content as we pour ourselves into our children or work. Quiet as limit, “as a form of subtraction” challenges us to see things in the ‘negative space,’ the space that is often left unexplored. Embracing limit teaches us that “we cannot live like the tireless machines and sleepless screens by which so much of our lives are now enabled and measured.” Quiet as limit brings us gifts we have forgotten, usually found in the shifting perspective toward simple things.
Chapter 6 – Cadence: Creating rhythms of quiet and presence in the world away from frenzy is something that should be “planted and tended like a garden, watched and guarded. Quiet is not an abstract thing we can pull down from the air but the formation of habit and time, a claiming of physical shapes and daily spaces.” When we embrace the cadence of quiet presence among our busyness, it becomes a life-giving habit. Although quiet can be practiced in “subtraction,” it can also be found in the daily rhythms and noise of life.
Chapter 7 – Prayer: Quiet is not always silence and solitude. Some of us have lives full of noise and constant distraction. Where can we steal away little moments of intentional prayer in the day? “What if the life of prayer, the rootedness of quiet, was fueled not by discipline but by wonder?”
Chapter 8 – Halcyon Day: Embracing our inadequacies and deciding to pay “‘attention to God in the soul’” by turning inward instead of a constant presence in the “outward things.” This often involves a place of silence but not necessarily isolation. It is not “severe discipline” but choosing contemplative moments over distraction. Through rest we can find quiet that brings us “nourishment” and “grace.”
Chapter 9: Becoming Small: Can quiet and rest be found in small decisions of obedience? “I have come to believe that the gift and work of quiet is not to be found in the reaching of small feats but the keeping of small faithfulnesses.” Tiny decisions made in faith can bring soul rest and a sense of accomplishment. Claiming small elements of beauty throughout our day draws inner rest and goodness in our direction.
Chapter 10: Imagination: The power of imagination is that it is one of the “great languages of truth.” Do you find hope through epic stories, through viewing different forms of art, through metaphysical encounters in the natural world? Truth is not always found just in the “confines of reason, argument, observation, and proof.” Sarah’s words challenge us to “receive the world without recording it.” Recording the world steals away an element of beauty. “If the attention of eye and heart are addictively mired in a screen that is a sleepless tool of analyzation, critique and distraction, then there is no room for imagination.”
Chapter 11: Seeing from the Inside: How do other people’s opinions corrupt how you see yourself? In the quiet we find space to listen. That is, listen to the true voice of how God sees us instead of who the world tells us we are: “The voices we allow to speak in the innermost rooms of our hearts are the ones that will tell our stories.” What story have you formed of yourself based on the words and thoughts of others? Quiet is a space to listen for the Voice of hope, God’s truth of your inner being.
Chapter 12: Lament: Sometimes in quiet we are forced to face our grief. Sarah challenges the reader in those moments to focus on the life-giving scripture of the Psalms that speak of God’s gentleness. Likewise, it might be possible to avoid the voices of the world that speak death into us and fill our lives for a time with gentle voices where we can find shelter. “In quiet, we learn to watch and wait for God’s help as it sets up camp in the very heart of our darkness.” Grace can be found in lament. However, quiet can also be “the vessel that bears us out of darkness and into quiet hope.”
My overall takeaway: As unique as we are as people, there is a method of quiet that can fit into our daily spaces, a way to find peace in a world of upheaval. Quiet can mean solitude. However, it might also embody glimpses of beauty throughout the day and prayers of noticing God’s creation all around. For me, I find the practice is a mixture of all of these: the spaces of solitude (negative space), spaces of quiet contemplation in nature (pilgrimage) or just small glimpses in the day of simple beauty (cadence or rhythms). What the book challenges the reader to do overall is to remove mindless distraction and just notice. Notice the world, notice our need for soul rest, and notice God’s language to us through creation.