Being around our building is, once more, to be very aware of the noise that building work can create. The building next door, this time, is the one that is being reconstructed, and there has a been a great deal of hammering and drilling. And today, there was more work being done on the road at the back, involving what appears to be elephants dancing on biscuits - loud and crunchy!
Also on a Tuesday - the day I am writing this - we have our "Waiting Prayer" meeting; a half hour of silent prayer, whcih, for those of us who attend, is a welcome oasis in a loud and busy life.
I ofund myself fantasising during the prayer today (I make no claims to be a disciplined prayer!) about running away to somewhere green, wind swept - and without mechanical noise. It would be so much easier to pray there, runs the imagining. I would not be so abstracted or wooly-witted. I would really achieve depths of communion with God.
But in fact, I believe that praying in this context - surrounded by noise and at times rather overwhelmed by the business and busyness of life in the city - keeps us real. If our prayer and worship only "works", only appears to have reality in pleasant, quiet, perhaps even "romantic" contexts,then we need to ask just what we think we are doing. There is no chance of that happening in our building; we are kept in touch with the life and demands, the joys and the challenges of living among people day to day.
And it keeps our day to day life real too. For as we pray and worship in the midst of the city, we keep alive the links between the complexities, joys and ever-pressing presence of living in our lives and in our city. Praying and worshipping in the noise and busyness not only stops our worship become isolated from the realities we live in; it also stops the everyday and immediate realities of our living becoming separated from the deep presence and activity of God.
So I am trying to give up my fantasy of a green space in order to be able to pray truly. And if you would like to explore with me even further the challenge of praying in our situation, come and join me sometime.