February 1, 2006
Still
The other day, the prayer book rubric, “Silence may be kept,” suddenly appeared to me, as I’m wont to say, out of nowhere. It reminded me that when the prophet Elijah listened for answers, he got them from a “still small voice,” what my favorite translation calls “the sound of gentle stillness” (1 Kgs 19.12). That kind of silence comes these days at a premium, except maybe for the many of us who, as the generations pass, get more in need of eardrum amplifiers with on-off switches.
Apparently, we need and continue to need the Era of Loud, the thump-thump-thump of the stereo in the car pulling up alongside steered by the oblivious driver. The sirens. The jackhammers. The Harleys. We’re overdosing on noise pollution.
If Elijah’s experience means anything, that’s probably not the way God seeks our attention. But come to think about it, it surely wasn’t all smoke and mirrors at Pentecost.