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Good morning.  This week in Prayer for the Day I’ve been meditating on noise and silence drawing on the hymn Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.  It’s an important theme for me, because last year I was diagnosed with a tumour affecting the balance centre of my left ear.  It gives me no symptoms at the moment, except that it presses on the nerves that control my hearing.  As a result I have a constant noise in my head, like a distant hoover or a badly tuned radio in the next room.  It’s not loud, but it’s always there.  Bach’s piano sonatas are now accompanied by a low drone.  Every word I write, I write onto paper that already has a covering of random marks.  Even my silent prayers are accompanied by a humming chorus. 

This is a noise that has no value.  It isn’t useful.  It doesn’t offer information or remind me of danger or reassure me that someone is present. And I can’t share it with you.  It is the noise of my own soul. 

I no longer have the option to hear silence. So instead I choose to live intentionally in a world of noise.  I notice the sound of the passing cars and their drivers, the raindrops falling on the window ledge and the hum of my computer, and I turn them into wordless prayers. I notice moment by moment the sounds of my own flawed internal circuitry, reminding me that I am alive again today – reminding me of the privilege of life. 

Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm.
Amen