Author: Guest Blog

As we continue looking at Pictures of Love here is a guest blog by Rev Simon Sutciffe, to read about some of his work as a pionneer minister in the Methodist Church here. To read a bit more about pioneer ministry in the Methodist Church read here.

I recently went on a trip to India and spent 4 nights in a village called Leti in the Himalayas. Below is a poem I wrote about it. It’s a place that I have never been to before, but is now etched on my heart, and I pray, I will see again.

What can be said about four nights in Leti?

Some inadequate words about the place being pretty?

The snow-capped mountains or the dark roaming hills?

The haze of the sunshine or the noise of the snow?

Children singing and dancing or

The bright coloured shacks?

Griffins circling high above or

Cricket played on the plateau below?

But no word can carry the silence of this place

The ear thumping

Heart thumping

Stillness

Of beauty

And in the end the only

Response that can be made

Is to be still

And be quiet;

Say nothing

Not a word.

Just sit and admire

The craft of our God.

Welcome to the second guest blog for the Pictures of Love project this is written by Rob Bee, a long standing friend, sound engineer, musician, twitcher and Methodist local preacher. Rob was one of the leaders of Cafe Sundae a fresh expression in Timperley based at the Methodist Church. If you want to be involved in the Pictures of love project then check out the info on the link above and send a photo to rob.dimension@tiscali.co.uk and please feel free to leave a comment at the bottom if you so wish.

Sound is something that is very important to me. As a musician and a professional sound engineer I need my ears and make a living out of crafting, shaping and forming aural constructs. Sound is not only a medium of information exchange and communication, it can also be a thing of beauty, balance and comfort. I love the sound of an E major being struck on an electric guitar through a cranked-up valve amp. I love the sound of a robin in full song in the middle of the night because it’s found a street light and it thinks dawn is about to break. I love the glugging sound made when you pour that first glass of wine out of the bottle. I love the silly noises my parents always seem to make between picking up the phone and saying, ‘Hello.’ But there is another sound that I think is very special. It’s impossible to record or photograph because it’s immovable from the places it occurs. It’s the sound of silence.

Very often when I get home from a busy day at work in the recording studio I’ll just sit on the sofa and very deliberately not put the TV or the stereo on. I will sit and enjoy the quiet. It’s about more than just resting my ears, I enjoy the stillness of the empty house and the moments of calm. But as lovely as these times are, the Sound of Silence is greater than that. I have been to many places that are quiet and I’ve worked in studios where the acoustic treatment is so good that sound seems to be sucked away from you into the walls. The Sound of Silence is greater than these things. It’s not like ‘no noise’ it’s like ‘negative noise’. And it’s loud.

Take a walk in the countryside and you will hear a great variety of sounds – whether you’re hearing the crashing of waves on the beach, the wind rustling through the leaves in the woods or the babbling brooks in the valleys there are myriad sounds to be heard that calm the soul. But at other times we hear the sound of silence. It’s the sound the snow makes as you stand by yourself and listen to it fall; the world holding it’s breath as awaits it’s transformation. It’s a powerful thing. It compels you to listen to it as it screams at you about it’s depth and richness. I find it sometimes in the Morecambe Bay Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty when conditions are perfect. It is a silence so complete that the occasional cry of a curlew or oystercatcher doesn’t puncture it; it enforces it and makes it stronger. It demands respect; and you obey lest you break the magic.

The Sound of Silence is the sound of space. It’s the sound of timeout. It’s like a mirror. It’s a rare thing, it’s valuable and it’s bizarre. It’s not that something’s missing – like a TV on mute – it’s that something is very definitely there and choosing to be noiseless.

The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, “Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.”  I couldn’t disagree more.

Welcome to the first guest blog featuring the Pictures of love project, this has been written by Rev Andrew Dunlop, if you want to know more about him check out his blog. Please feel free to leave comments at the bottom.

I lost my wedding ring. I’d had it on as usual – I never take it off -when I turned up to an outdoor Karting Centre to enjoy a day team endurance racing, a celebration of someone’s birthday. It was a cold day. We were hanging around in the briefing area for quite some time waiting for the safety announcements and for the melting snow to be cleared off the track. Suddenly I looked down and noticed that my ring had gone. I retraced my steps from the car to the centre, via the burger van, looking for something shining in the snow. I even went through the paper towel bin in the men’s toilets. No luck. It was gone. Eventually I suited up and enjoyed the day’s racing (my team came last), all the time with this lost thing hanging heavy in my mind. Messages were left with the staff of the centre to call me if anything turned up and on returning home, I scoured the house and thoroughly went through my bag to no avail.

Arriving home, I was really quite gutted that I had lost my ring. It wasn’t the cost that annoyed me – a replacement ring would only cost about £150-200 and most of that would be covered by my home insurance. It was the item itself, as if a part of me was missing. I didn’t realise how much it had come to be a part of me until I lost it. I was reminded of the parable of the lady who lost a silver coin, searched high and low and threw a massive party for all her friends when she found it. This ring had been used at my wedding, with my wife making promises of commitment and fidelity “for richer, for poorer, to love and to cherish, in sickness and in health… till death do us part”. The ring symbolised those vows, secure and unending. My marriage, and those vows were, of course, still intact. Nevertheless, it felt like something had been lost.

A week later my wife and I were packing and overnight bag for a weekend trip. Just the basic pyjamas and change of underwear needed. Picking up my bag, it fell open and out of a hidden pocket fell a couple of old leaflets and… my wedding ring. It must have slipped off my fingers during the karting trip whilst I was rooting around in the bag searching for something. Time to rejoice, to enjoy a weekend away, to share the good news on facebook, and see the ‘likes’ pile up.

“Imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she’ll call her friends and neighbours: ‘Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!’ Count on it—that’s the kind of party God’s angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God.” (Luke 15:8-10)