Word for the Week: The Sound of Silence
The LORD is in his holy temple;
let all the earth be silent before him.
Habakkuk 2:20
In chapter 2, Habakkuk hears God pronouncing a series of woes – woes against noisy, busy, destructive human societies. Against those who are busy commercially, heaping up what is not their own and living on credit; those who plunder other nations, destroying human lives, and the very earth itself; those who protect themselves by all means, leaving others in danger and misery; those who abuse alcohol and drag others down with them; those who cheapen love and sex; those who worship false gods.
But the Lord is still in his holy temple and he calls for silence – for the whole earth to stop and listen to the silence that should bring unease, reflection and repentance; that forces humans to see themselves in the light of heaven and to understand the truth long enough to be forced onto their knees before the Lord God Almighty.
For some of us only our holidays take us away from diaries, snatched breakfasts, lunch at the computer, meetings, earphones, music, meals with friends, and all the bustle of transport, city streets, TV and the ringing of mobiles. Yet a rhythm of bustle and silence is built into the fabric of creation. God made it – that must have been a noisy time – and then he rested and looked at what he had done. We need to turn that one day in seven into one hour a day, perhaps, one weekend a month, and give ourselves and those round us a chance to be still and quiet and turn our fragmented attention spans to the Lord in his holy temple, or we too will be dragged down into the woes of our noisy, hyperactive and sometimes violent world.
O Sabbath rest by Galilee!
O calm of hills above,
Where Jesus knelt to share with thee
The silence of eternity,
Interpreted by love!
Margaret Killingray
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