Hi folks, this week its BEER and CAROLS!! 7.30 at Platform 2 on Tynemouth Station… We really hope you can join us, it will be a fabb fun evening. This weeks blog is written for us by John Cooper.
———-
Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long; Beneath the heav’nly hymn have rolled Two thousand years of wrong; And waring humankind hears not
The tidings which they bring: O hush the noise and cease your strife And hear the angels sing.
I’m a huge fan of Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood. I often listen to it as I go to sleep. It’s a play for voices written in 1954 that tells the story of the life of a small Welsh seaside town on one day.
It begins…in the beginning… with the narrator inviting us to view the town sleeping. We fly through the dark streets and have night vision. Babies sleep, black flour flies in pitch dark bakeries and donkeys tread the cobbled street with seaweed on their hooves. We are invited in as all seeing witnesses to the hopes, dreams and secrets (and sins) of the sleeping town.
As shepherds sit on the dark hillside – Bethlehem sleeps and hopes for a song long told by the prophets:
But you, Bethlehem, David’s country,
the runt of the litter—
From you will come the leader
who will shepherd-rule Israel.
Micah 5:2 The Message
The town sleeps and dreams and hopes.
A few years ago, a friend introduced me to the prologue to the nativity in Sally Lloyd-Jones’ Storybook bible. It sums up how I see the Hush! In our hymn.
A pregnant pause…
…An intake of breath…
…An expectant tension
“EVERYTHING WAS READY. The moment God had been waiting for was here at last! God was coming to help people just as he had promised in the beginning.
But how would he come? What would he be like? What would he do?
…the earth held its breath. As silent as the falling snow, he came in. And when no-one was looking, in the darkness, he came.”
Around the world the clamour of war and strife have deadened ears and desensitised feelings; but the silence rolls out like a shockwave ready to burst as the angels roar a new beginning into song.
We need to Hush our own noise, whatever that is. Key back into our senses and listen more intently beyond the clamour and find the silent space where God slips in unnoticed.
Only one question this week. Take some space to be quiet and listen.
What needs to hushed?
Rob Wylie is the founder of BeachcomberFX and guides its leadership team. He has worked in the North East for over 20 years and has vast experience from various roles he has held. He has a passion for Fresh Expressions of Church and Pioneer Ministry as well as beer, beaches and Miniature Schnauzers.
