One of my worst habits is keeping the radio on at night.
It’s so much of a problem that I have a little underpillow speaker, so that even when my snores disrupt Janet’s sleep, BBC7 doesn’t.
Except, of course, that I don’t always remember to plug the speaker in…
So it’s quite odd that I fond background noise distracting, given that in the middle of the night it can lull me back to sleep… But, as time goes on, I do find it harder to ignore some sounds, particularly when I’m trying to concentrate on reading, thinking – or praying.
I suppose something similar afflicts a lot of people – they love music as a background to work, but if it’s someone else’s music, it suddenly loses its charm.
It also happens in church. During a service, we do several different things: some of the time, we aim to be very much “with” each other, worshipping our God together. At other points in the service, each of us needs to be, in some sense, alone with God. This is particularly true for me at three points – the last few minutes before the service starts, during prayers, and during communion.
And, while one of the great glories of St Martin’s is that we are a sociable and friendly church, I find that vocal sociability at these times distracts my already-flittering mind further from thoughts of God.
We’re often exhorted to make a “joyful sound” – perhaps, at times, a “joyful silence” would be much to the point…
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