A return and a giveaway

In which I ease back into the online world with a little gift in hand...

UPDATE: Thank you so so very much for entering! I wish I could send a copy to every one of you, but I’m delighted to announce that Sarah M. Wilson is the winner. Congratulations, Sarah!

Hello my friends,

Upon this luminous day I’m sitting in the window of a favourite cafe, flat white beautifully brewed, sun drumming down upon the flower baskets and cobbles out the window. It’s a joy to say it feels very much the Eastertide season that it is. The last of the bluebells linger in our garden and my children are delighted by the cow parsley ‘forest’ in which they like to (mostly) hide. We’re easing back into vicarage life after a visit to the States and a very full Lenten season. It’s a joy to be doing this just at the outdoor days here begin.

It’s been a little while. I’ve been largely absent from online spaces for various reasons, a few of which you’ll hear more of soon.

But I’m easing back in starting today and I’m doing it with a little giveaway. This week marks the 6-month anniversary of the release of my newest book, Reclaiming Quiet. This book, it was such a wrestle to write. It took three strenuous years and three deadline extensions as I navigated three of the least quiet years of our lives. It was such an interior journey and wrestle of heart and mind for me that when I finally sent the manuscript off, I wasn’t even sure if it would connect with a wider readership. I’d written what I’d been asked to write, what I’d needed to write as part of my own journey in search of attention, of prayer, of wonder.

But when I found out it would release on Election Day, one of the loudest of the year, I sighed with resignation and assumed this little book would be lost in the larger furore of the world.

But friends, you found it. So many of you found it and read it and generously shared it with friends and I discovered that there are so many good souls wrestling hard in a reach for quiet, yearning for wonder, learning to live with attention. It was a grace and an astonishment to watch the book make its way into the world by your kindly reception.

So in honour of where you and our good Lord have brought this little book, I’m giving away one signed copy along with a very special print. In the second chapter of the book, I talk about a painting I deeply love (it’s framed in my reading corner), ‘Enveloped in Gold’ by the artist Tim Steward. In it, a women grieves or prays, face in her hands, seeming to be caught in shadow even as a great light surrounds her. It’s become an image to me of the tender presence that awaits us amidst our uproar and distraction, enveloping us, welcoming us home when we return to the quiet.

My publisher wonderfully commissioned a short run of small prints of this image as part of the promotion for the book, and I have two leftover. So today, in celebration of where you and our good Lord have taken this book, I’m giving away a signed copy and single print in sheer thanks. (I’m giving the other one away on my Instagaram - @sarahwanders - you can enter there too.)

To enter, just comment below. Mention or tag a friend you’d like to read the book with in a separate comment for an extra entry.

Thanks friends. I’m off to walk a bit in the sunlight and amble home to find which corner of the garden my children have chosen as their world today. They’ve recently named our willow tree ‘the Queen of the Garden’ so I suspect they’ll be somewhere in her shade.

I’m up to all kinds of interesting reading these days and find myself honing in on a particular subject. I look so forward to writing more about it, and all the other wondrous things to be found in this corner of the world, very soon.

A joyous, sunlit Eastertide to you all!

Sarah