One of my earliest experiences of the power of silence would have been the ‘minutes silence’ in memory of a football personality before a match. There was something eerily other-worldly about a place usually brimming with the noise and bustle of thousands of people suddenly falling completely silent. Unfortunately this practice has become another victim of our postmodernist age. It has been replaced by a minutes clapping! An age that cannot bear even one minute of stillness in honour of the deceased.

There is a football fanzine called ‘When Saturday Comes.’ The title encapsulates the experience of my generation. Saturday was a big day…it was football day! The excitement of waking up on Saturday morning was worth looking forward to even if it was tinged with anxiety about whether your team was going to play well and win or not. In winter this anxiety was also tinged with whether your match would be called off or not. You had to tune into the radio to get a list of the matches that had been postponed. As a last resort you knew that when you got to the underground station, there would be list of postponed matches written on a board. In my days of following Queens Park Rangers this would happen a lot. I had a friend called Josh who I sometimes went with. He lived near Highbury and when the QPR match was called off we went to watch Arsenal…my first love. Arsenal would always come up trumps…Arsenal had under soil heating which would melt the ice and snow. Arsenal would rarely let you down. When the match at Highbury was called off you knew things were very bad.

If there was no football on a Saturday, you were left feeling empty and depressed. Something else had to be sought after to relieve the bad feelings of emptiness and depression. Over the years I have learnt to stay with the emptiness and not run away from it. Love abhors a vacuum. Dwell with the emptiness and God will eventually fill it. This is why I love the photo of the man standing in an empty snow bound Highbury. He stands expectantly, waiting for something to happen. Where there is usually action and noise, he stands alone ankle deep in cold snow, looking across a cold desolate stadium. You can almost hear the dark emptiness whispering, “so what now?” It is a scene that cancels all the usual entertainment and distractions we seek to fill our time with. It takes away the noise and the movement, the banter and chanting of the crowd, the pace and aggression of the play on the field. I am taken away and left standing with Elijah in his cave searching for the only thing necessary, the search for God.

“Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. And when Eli′jah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

1 Kings 19:11-13

I used to be enamoured with a song by one of my favourite bands, Talking Heads. I would sing it at the odd social gathering. The song was called ‘Heaven.’ The chorus goes…

Heaven
Heaven is a place
A place where nothing
Nothing ever happens

The songwriter, David Byrne, describes Heaven as a place that everyone is trying to get to. That it is full of familiarity…they play my favourite song over and over again. It is a place full of repetition…

When this party’s over, it will start again
Will not be any different, will be exactly the same

It has echoes of G.K. Chesterton’s description of our creator God in childlike glee re-creating over and over again. He doesn’t make just one daisy but repeats the act over and over again, billions and billions of times. Things of beauty might often be seen as boring. But to live simply is often to see the mundane in a new light. Who can fail to stand in appreciation of the sunrise which happens repetitively day after day?

Then Byrne concludes the song with this line…

It’s hard to imagine that nothing at all
Could be so exciting, could be this much fun

Highbury in the snow is a thing of beauty. Snow is beautiful, it is wonderful to look at and forces us to be snow-bound…to do nothing. Highbury Stadium was (and still is) a beautiful building. This beauty is not dependent on the football that was played there. It was given a listed status, so when Arsenal F.C. Built the new Emirates Stadium, Highbury was turned into apartments keeping the main structure and decor of the East and West stands in place. Whenever I have been to the Emirates Stadium on a match-day I have walked past the old Highbury Stadium, along with many others to just stop and stare. A thing of beauty, like a piece of exquisite artwork, is something one can return to over and over again, to just stand before it and in awe of it, and just be…ad infinitum. Beauty is a place where nothing ever happens.

I remained, lost in oblivion;
My face I reclined on the Beloved.
All ceased and I abandoned myself,
Leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

St. John of the Cross

‘Dark Night of the Soul’