Having come to faith as a young adult, Sarah Parkinson had always had a strong sense of the presence and loving care of God in her life. Following a family bereavement, she found herself searching for a God who no longer seemed to be there. Through prayer, exploration and spiritual direction Sarah found herself growing into a more profound and mature relationship with God. In Searching for a Silent God, Sarah Parkinson combines autobiographical reflection with poetry written during her experience of divine silence and thus enables others to engage with their spirituality in a new and different way.
The author tells her own story, and in doing so enables others to search for and find transformation in their faith and life. It is a deeply moving exploration of experiencing how God can be silent and appear absent at a time of searching and bereavement.
This is a thoughtful and engaging companion for all who experience times of spiritual crisis.
Searching for a Silent God is courageous writing from the far shore where Sarah Parkinson found that God was “blanking” her. Many of us find ourselves in this kind of struggle with God’s disappearing act. Sarah lets us in on her need to make sense of difficult and complex things, “where doctrine rubbed up against realities”. Here is a person who has been to the “ragged edges” of her faith and has come back with the treasures of darkness.
Sarah has a poet’s way with words that gives texture to experiences which often elude language. She is honest with herself and with us.
The Rt Revd Alison White, Bishop of Hull
[These] are poems to be prayed through, perfectly illustrating the unfathomable God whom Parkinson discovers in the silent darkness when she still knows that God is there, but cannot get him to turn and answer. At the heart of the book is the question: If my identity is found in God, then who am I, what is left, when God will not speak to me or respond?
This book would be of comfort to anyone struggling to pray or to see God with the old clarity that they used to. Because of her honesty and approachability, Parkinson makes an engaging and sympathetic companion.
We are left envious of those who have Parkinson as a spiritual director, since she so clearly knows the paths of the heart and has plumbed something of the mystery of God. Like Jacob at the Jabbok, she is scarred from her wrestling and yet somehow more certain of God.
The Revd Richard Lamey, The Church Times
This is a creative and well-written short book, touching on important issues of spiritual growth and times of darkness, and may be a great comfort to some.
April McIntyre, Transforming Ministry
Sarah Parkinson is a writer and spiritual director living in the East Riding of Yorkshire with her family. Her poems have been published in a Proost anthology.
