Saturday 12 March 2022

I wrote this two years ago when on sabbatical. I'd forgotten about it until it popped up on Facebook Memories. Not had a lot of silence recently - the world, the church, the work - all feels very noisy just now. There's a need to find sabbath moments in the midst of the everyday.

COUNTDOWN
Words that break silence
carry a currency greater
than the cheap words
of our endless babble.
The Babel unravelling of human
relating, reveals a creator
who, with fingers in divine ears
wants some peace
and, perhaps,
to get a word in edgeways.
And what of the babblers?
We rabbit on, afraid that
should we refrain, pause,
stop, for a single second,
we might hear in the silence,
the clock-tick rhythm of our
heartbeats and be reminded
that this is a count down
to a greater silence.

by Michaela Youngson