One of the joys of being more mature, or as my wife puts it, “being a grumpy old man,” is that you don’t have to be tactful any more. As long as you are not rude, you can be totally honest and people put it down to you having a “senior moment.”

In our busy 21st century world, the one thing guaranteed to drive me up the wall is constant noise and there is almost no way of avoiding it. It invades our life at all times, radio, TV, personal audio devices, constant traffic noise and worst of all the dreaded mobile phone. Why can’t people drive their cars, shop, or even walk along a street without the need to be in constant communication with someone else? In spite of the stress this sometimes causes, or perhaps being unaware of it, there are many who seem unable to live without it and are absolutely devastated if they can’t receive a phone signal.

Try to escape by popping into a shop or shopping centre and you find that most of these play continuous music at high decibels because as one shop assistant cheerfully told me recently, “It attracts customers.” Needless to say, it didn’t attract me and feeling “grumpy,” I left. Even telephone operators assume you can’t stand silence for a moment and subject you to unwanted and unasked for music when they put you on hold. I always wait until they come back on the line to say they are putting you through then I ask for the music to be replayed as I found it most enjoyable whilst waiting and this seems to put them off their stride a bit.

The greatest distraction of noise that Jesus had to contend with was the clamour of the people who followed him around constantly and we are told that he often went off to pray on his own, because he too needed some peace and quiet. At times we all need to step away from the daily distractions of living and find a quiet place, to be alone with ourselves and our God. It is in those precious moments that He will lead us to discover who we are and what life is really all about.