I’ve been trying to pay more attention to the sounds around me since reading the Archbishop of Canterbury’s 2010 Lent Book: Our Sound is our Wound, by Canon Lucy Winkett of St Paul’s Cathedral. In this beautiful work the author meditates on the sounds we hear and make in the world today, and how we might listen to God through them. As a trained singer, Lucy Winkett particularly discusses the place of music in the life of faith. She explains how music requires us to listen, to cooperate, to know when to be silent, and to give of ourselves wholeheartedly as we play or sing, if the sound we make is to be authentic and inspiring to others. In this way it forms a parable, and an example, of what following Jesus might mean.

The author also explores the sounds of the contemporary world with great insight and compassion. She discusses the increasing noise of modern life, and asks whether much of its frantic volume is a means of escapism – a way of filling life with so much blather that we don’t stop to ask the big questions. Yet if we tune our ears and pay attention the world is ringing with the sounds that matter. There is the raw lament of the suffering, the song of hope in the mouths of those who demand justice, the still small voice of God whispering comfort and peace in a broken world, and the shout of praise from those who know him.

Rarely have I read a Lent book that made me stop and think as much as this one. So I’d like to commend it to you if you get the chance to read it before (or indeed after) Easter. It’s widely available from bookshops or on the internet and I have put my copy in the Church library. In any case, why not listen to the sounds we hear this Lent with a little added attention, for they could be the voice of God speaking into our lives.

                                                                                      Derwyn