Friday 15 February 2013

It can be scary

Silence that is!  I sort of touched on that yesterday as well, but before I go any further I meant to put the link to the whole series into yesterday's post so here it is:

http://www.standrewholborn.org.uk/church-life/lent-book-2013

I awoke in the middle of the night last night - its not unusual for me so I wasn't anxious or worried but I didn't go back to sleep immediately.  My mind had been pondering on the the reflection and the link that is sometimes made between silence and death.  The silence can be quite deafening in the middle of the night.  Somehow it gets compounded by the darkness and has the potential to become menacing.  Illnesses always seem worse during the dark hours and I am sure I read somewhere that death 'snatches' people away in the wee small hours more than it does in the bright light of day.  Our bodies rhythms are at their low ebb and we feel/are vulnerable.

When I was a child the house we lived in had a strip of wood in front of it and half the road had a HUGE, dense holly hedge along the path.  It did seem huge to a child but in reality it was probably only 8ft tall.  I got used to walking down the road on my own and then when I went to high school the shortest route home was through another piece of woodland (I suspect they were once all one). I loved the sense of being at one with that piece of wood as I walked through it on dull evenings and dark nights.  I was a strange child!  But it never felt silent - there was my footfall for a start, the rustle of leaves on the ground and the sighing of the twigs and branches above me.

maybe its because I'm an eternal optimist... but silence always seems pregnant to me.  Full of possibilities.  Redolent with potential abundance... as the reflection highlighted the silent death of winter hides the plentiful promise of spring.

Silence doesn't have to be scary...

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