Just now there’s an exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, where I work, called ‘Storms War and Shipwrecks’. It’s terrific, full of ancient treasures from the bottom of the sea around Sicily, but I feel slightly wistful whenever I arrive at work and see the posters for it, because it seems to sum up all the excitement that my professional life appears to lack.
I love my job, but it brings very little in the way of blazing headlines, crashing triumphs and whirlwind success. Being a teacher and museum curator is practically the definition of ‘mild-mannered’.
But the other day I had an email from a student. It was polite (you have to like a polite student) and it was kind and it thanked me for some classes I taught this term. That was all. But when I read it, it was as if I knew all over again why I do what I do.
Now there was once a man called Elijah who hated his job. He was a prophet and, since he was so unhappy, God said he’d come and meet him.
What happened next was extraordinary. While Elijah hid in a cave, there was a wind that split the mountains. There was an earthquake. There was a fire. And then there was the sound of sheer silence. And in the sound of sheer silence Elijah met his God and knew what he had to do next.
Sometimes, I reckon we spend too much time looking for the wind, the earthquake and the fire. I know I do. It’s as if the extraordinary events of the world are the only ones that tell us anything, as if those excitements are what make life worth living. But they’re not. They’re just noise.
There’s a lot of noise in the world right now, and I wonder whether what we need is to do is what seems impossible: to wait and to listen.
And eventually, out of the sheer silence, someone will say something polite and kind and wise and we’ll know what to do next. I hope so.
The picture above is a detail from John Martin, The Great Day of His Wrath, oil on canvas, 1851-3; Tate Britain