A Summer of Quiet

A few years ago when I was finishing the work on my book Reclaiming Quiet, while also trying to construct a life that truly was quiet, I stumbled one day upon the word that I wanted to define our ordinary:

Spacious.

Quiet, for me, seemed an impossible quality to cultivate without a sense of time as ample. I wanted our lives to be, not crammed with endless activity or entertainment or things, but ordered, roomy, so that creativity or rest or prayer could happen when the urge arose. I wanted our lives to be spacious, our experience of time to be not of a severely rationed substance of which there is never enough, but of a gracious plenty. And with that outward experience of time and home as having room to move about, to breathe, I hoped that we could also cultivate an interior sense of broadened space. I wanted us to nourish an attention to God’s movement within us, a quiet in which my husband and children and I could discover ourselves safe, rooted, loved.

I’m still working on it.

That, of course, is the great battle we’re all fighting in the modern world. To keep our experience of time or life as spacious and slow is something we have to fight for almost with ferocity so great are the currents of distraction, of mindless activity, of consumption. Two years on from publishing my book, I find myself returning, yet again, to the core ideas that drove me to write it in the first place. Quiet as homecoming. Quiet as limit. Quiet as trust. After our time away in Germany, I’ve returned determined to use the less-scheduled weeks of summer to once again clear out, widen, make spacious our ordinary lives.

I wonder, would you like to join me?
Here’s what I plan to do:

I’m going to go back through my book Reclaiming Quiet: Cultivating a Life of Holy Attention, chapter by chapter, in an intentional immersion in the themes and habits of quiet. Yet again, both for myself and any who join me, we’ll consider what quiet is, how we may practically and daily cultivate it in a frenzied world, and how it can root us in a profound attention and wonder that can transform the way we live. The goal of the study is to use the unique, spacious days of summer to truly reclaim quiet, turn ourselves radically from the noise of a fallen world and back to the interior home of God’s presence within our hearts.

Each week I’ll provide a live, recorded video talk on Monday themed to our current chapter in the book. This will be accompanied by extensive notes via email or download which will always include:

• study questions

• themed quotes (from the novels/poems/theology I read to shape my ideas)

• Scriptures for the week

• suggestions for further reading

• a piece of art

• suggested films or books

• and a curated playlist that will grow each week

I’ll also provide two Q&A sessions, one halfway through the study, and one to close, for which you can submit any question you would like. We’ll close the study, and the final Q&A session with a brief liturgy and time of led contemplative prayer.

TO REGISTER GO HERE.
Cost is $40 for 12 weeks (which includes fifteen live sessions, and twelve sets of study resources and notes). Scholarships are available (message me at sarahclarksonwriter@gmail.com). Members of my Patreon will receive a 20% discount (code will be posted in The Vicarage Library), as will those who pay for a subscription here at Substack (I’ll send an email with the code).

A few details to keep in mind:

• All video sessions will be recorded and available for you to watch at any time.

• The study officially begins on Monday, 11th May, at 7:30pm London time (but again, all sessions will be recorded so you don’t ever need to be there ‘live’.

• Notes will be available either by email (I will email them to all attendees) or by a link directly below the video player on the event page.

• I’ll be hosting an introduction/information session today (6th May) at 4.30pm London time to help you navigate everything and know what to expect. Again, it will be recorded so if you are registered, you can access that at any time.

• All participants can use the code QUIETSUMMER26 at Baker House to purchase Reclaiming Quiet at a 40% discount with free US shipping.

NOTE: I’m running this through Crowdcast, not Substack, so if you want to join, click here to go to the event page and register there.

I hope mightily that this immersion in the nature and shape of real quiet will help us to use the unique days of summer to reorient and craft our lives to be spaces of real attention, real joy, and luminous trust. Do join me.

And in the meantime, may you find the grace of spaciousness beginning to widen your days…