“A woman who reads is a woman who has been prepared to accept the truth that beauty tells, to embrace the good news that imagination brings, the promise of joy that greets us in the happy endings or poignant insights of the novels we love. She has learned to glimpse eternity as it shimmers in story or song, to receive the satisfaction of a happy ending as a promise. She has come to recognize the voice of love speaking in the language of image and imagination and to trust what it speaks as true.” ReadingImagination Author:Sarah Clarkson
“A woman who reads is a rebel, defying the pace of the instant at which the modern world gallops from dawn until dusk. Her mind is her own, formed not by a scroll down the social media feed or the frantic scurry of too much to do but by her daily decision to walk in company with the wise, those authors who help her to step back, to listen, to pray, and to ponder.” WomenBooks Author:Sarah Clarkson
“To know yourself as an agent in the story of the world, one able to bring light and goodness in the midst of suffering, is a profoundly empowering knowledge, one that I believe comes to every woman who reads.” WomenEmpowermentReaders Book:Book Girl: A Journey Through the Treasures and Transforming Power of a Reading Life Source: Book Girl: A Journey Through the Treasures and Transforming Power of a Reading Life
“Secular materialism dismisses belief in spiritual reality and the use of imagination as false; it sees beauty as dispensable and subjective, emotion as chemical, imagination (and with it, religion) as fantasy. Ironically, this view increasingly influences the way we live out our faith and speak about God, as apologists seek to argue God's existence on materialism's own terms, using scientific proof–style reasoning, and analytical debate to "prove" the reality of the spiritual world. It filters down to us in a thousand ordinary ways, shaping our models of spiritual growth, lines of productivity or casting faith as an assent to a list of doctrinal statements rather than the renewal of ourselves and stories. It makes us doubt the "usefulness" of beauty or the spiritual purpose of imagination, but this is a profoundly un-Christian view of faith and personhood. To reject image, emotion, and story as peripheral to faith is to ignore the way God created us – as being made in his image to create in our turn, as souls capable of both reason and analysis, but also equally capable of imagination, creativity, and emotion.” FaithImaginationBeautyMaterialism Author:Sarah Clarkson