The Very Rev Albert Bogle explains the importance of silence and reflection in creating harmony.

Perhaps we need to think more about the importance of space and silence in our spiritual lives and in our daily communications.

TO describe someone as leading a ‘Quiet Life’ is often construed as inferring they are perhaps a little dull, lacking in personality and ambition. Our busy fast moving, in your face 21st century media-promoted lifestyles have created an expectation, certainly among many young people, that to be exciting and interesting, you require to be busy and enthusiastic always posting your good side on social media. It’s of course too easy to attribute this noisy fast-moving search for meaning and purpose in the fast lane, to the 21st century alone.

The facts are quite different. Ever since the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century past generations have also been chasing a noise-filled dream for wealth and happiness. A dream we know for so many is elusive and destructive.

I remember my father explaining to me how he felt when he came to Glasgow for the first time as a young man in the in the late 1930s. Having spent all of his life up to that point living in the country, he thought he had arrived in hell. It was the sheer volume of noise in the streets that disturbed and irritated him. Yet he stuck with it because he too was sold an elusive dream. During his more reflective periods, he longed to be back on the farm with his horses. For him the quiet life was far from boring – it allowed him to think but it also framed for him an alternative mindset and lifestyle.

This month in Sanctuary First we’re exploring the place of quietness in our lives. We’re looking for the places and spaces in the Bible where the gap in the story or what has been left out becomes the vital point.

When I first started working with accomplished musicians I discovered that music was not only about what you put into the performance it was what you left out. It was about the importance of making space. I began to realise that the spaces are also part of the overall composition. It is the same with painting a picture. It’s the artist who knows when to stop – who paints the best picture. I also learned that it was essential when rehearsing in a rock band to learn to play quietly before turning up the volume. To play together requires space and silence and a quieter volume in order to become an accomplished unit. Then you can turn the volume up.

Perhaps we need to think more about the importance of space and silence in our spiritual lives and in our daily communications, especially when it comes to the way we speak to each other. It’s too easy to fill in the spaces in our conversations with idle chat, as kind of space fillers, in order to hide our uncomfortable feelings about silence. When what we need in our conversations is in fact the space to reflect and think together in a comfortable silence.

I’m convinced if we could pursue the quiet life more deliberately and vigorously we would find ourselves being drawn closer to God. How often do we read in scripture about the importance of keeping silence in the presence of the Almighty. In Psalm 46 the psalmist encounters the voice of God saying to him. “Be still and know that I am God.”

As the Church begins to search for the mind of Christ in these coming months; as the General Assembly approaches and reports are being written: and radical action plans are discussed: let us all keep in mind the importance of the quiet life.

We should note that the quiet life is never to be thought of in terms of disengagement from problems and difficulties, but rather quite the opposite. It is the quiet life, the life of prayer and reflection that sustains us to continue to work through the issues of living in a noisy world. The quiet life creates the gaps the spaces the silences which in turn re-interprets the music of life to allow us to live in harmony with each other and the world around us.

The Very Rev Albert Bogle is a Pioneer Minister of Sanctuary First Church Online at www.sanctuaryfirst.org.uk