Silence

Trinity Sunday 7th June, 2020

I wrote the other day of my love of letters as a form of correspondence. I have received another 'corker' from a priest friend. It is a generalised round robin ( with a personal note enclosed in which he writes about the 'bane of male authority' and notes that he is 'sick of being told what to do'. In the lockdown he feels too many of 'our lords and masters are pretending to be God'. I utterly agree and have pondered it much recently. I think it resonates with the George Floyd protests against racism  and the equivalent lords and masters of the establishment )yet with many insights.

First, he knows that the lockdown has been causing 'probably untold damage in many households' and yet the 'new found calm is something that can be treasured'. He sites absence of traffic, cleaner surrounds, time for exercise and family as well as a new respect for personal space. This last sentiment had never occurred to me: have we become an intrusive society without respect for the space and privacy of others?

Second he writes ' I am optimistic enough to believe that being socially-distanced possibly offers unrivalled incentives for improved communication with others. He then sites a list of means and methods from texts, apps, newsletters, telephones, emails and even letters.

He makes me realise that I am curmudgeonly and the only communications I exercise are as before: letters, emails and telephones in case of emergency. But I want to take communication to a higher level and meaning. I believe that my silence ( most silence) and stillness and consciousness of others in it ( my deceased family and friends, those suffering horrors and hellish lives ) are a form of communication and lockdown should be intensifying that awareness. Also when I ask the question or write it 'how are you' it takes on a deeper and more intimate and sincere hue. It is not a social nicety, it is a true concern and desire to know.

It is so good to have his letter and note. I can read and re read them. I can meditate on them and ruminate and mull them over. They have stimulated me and inspired me to take a more serious look at my reaction and that of others to all in this pandemic. Yes, this is a valuable communication: more serious in its writing and content and more seriously read.

As I write this so I pause off and on to think of him and others. Silence is a communication also.