Sense Making Faith - Lent 2009

Earlier this year I went to a see a band called Spiritualized at Manchester Academy.  Spiritualized are interesting for a number of reasons, one of them being that the lead singer Jay Spaceman had a serious illness and during that illness was hospitalized.  During that illness he was in a coma, moving in and out of life, until eventually recovering to release the new album ‘Songs from A & E’.

As the gig drew to a close the band got louder and louder until for about 10 minutes there was a continuous explosion of sound and light.  People started to cover their ears as the sound enveloped us.  As we were leaving my wife said to me, ‘Do you think that was meant to be an experience of a coma?’  The sound was so powerful it was disorientating, so powerful that we felt a level of detachment from the 500 or so other people in the room.

As I’ve reflected on the power of sound I’ve also found myself pondering about the noises that Christ heard on that journey into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday.  The cries of praise and the sounds of support - an expectant crowd praising their saviour.  I imagine that the noise was overwhelming.  As I write this post, on Maunday Thursday, I am aware of the same crowd making very different noises…I imagine that this noise was also overwhelming.

There is a story in the Bible about a prophet called Elijah.  Elijah is sat in a cave feeling suicidal, whilst in the cave God tells him that he is about to pass by and so to go outside.  Elijah goes outside and a strong wind passes by, followed by an almighty earthquake and then by a fire.  The sound of the these three must have been overwhelming for Elijah…but the Bible tells us that God was not in any of these.  Finally after this explosion of sound, there is the ‘sound of sheer silence’.  It is in this sound of sheer silence that Elijah hears the voice of God.

Spiritualized, the crowds that greeted Jesus, the sound of the fire, earthquake and wind offer an unusual level of sound intensity.  Sound is rarely that intense and often simply background noise that we don’t really focus on.  Let me suggest that you spend some moments now listening to those sounds around you, it maybe traffic passing by or perhaps it is the chattering of voices.  Whatever the noises listen to them and appreciate them, they are the normal soundscape of your life.  In the normal and ordinary, the extraordinary will be found if we seek and remain attentive.  It is in the ordinary that we will hear the still small voice of God.