Introduction: Words, silence and the Word

First there was the silence of thinking that an outbreak of disease on the other side of the world had little to do with us, preoccupied as we were with the climate crisis, the plight of refugees, and the chaos of Brexit: silence which was lack of response.

Then there were the voices of those who saw more clearly what was coming: scientists, epidemiologists, hospital doctors, the World Health Organisation. Our response was the silence of not wanting to hear, or of questions hanging in the air.

Then there was the clamour of our questions, of What will happen now? How much danger is there? Where is it? What can we do? How can normal life go on? Inside – the cold silence of fear.

Then it was clear that the pandemic was upon us, among us, and lockdown was imposed. Communities were silenced by shock, of incredulity. And then, as each person or household ‘sheltered in place’, the silence of isolation broke upon us: a silence that roared in our ears.

Many were completely alone. But even couples, families, were cut off from each other. Sure, we had phones, radio, TV, Internet, FaceTime, Skype … soon there were Zoom conferences being set up. There were daily briefings and hourly news bulletins, political bluster and breaking news. It was a perfect

storm, and we were all at sea. But all this noise of a 21st century society in crisis couldn’t drown out the silence underneath – of loneliness and the fear of death.

Into this chaos came words. Many people turned to writing: diaries, letters, cards, poems. Human words, sent out across the void of our isolation, shouted into the storm over which we had no control. What we could do was communicate with each other, raise our voices against the silence of separation, argue with our own doubts, call out to God, express our fragile hope.

Here are the voices of just a few – with poems, psalms, songs, affirmations of faith and prayers written during ten weeks of lockdown in the spring of 2020, from mid-Lent to Trinity Sunday.

We offer these human words believing that when the darkness seems overwhelming, light dawns; that into the silence of our worst fears, God speaks a living Word.

Jan Sutch Pickard