Most years I spend some days working alone on open moorland far from habitation here on Skye. Being alone in such a quiet environment you become attuned to things not normally perceptible in a more urban setting. One of these is the wind and its movements. The wind of course is present most of the time in a place like this – but there are occasions when suddenly it drops and the silence is profound. At other times it can be soft – and when it blows from a certain direction – on rare occasions – you hear sounds on the wind. Perhaps it is the voice of an unseen shepherd on a distant hillside – or the voices of people talking on a road far out of sight. The wind carries sound – and nowhere are you more aware of this than on the open moor. But even there all else has to be quiet – silent – and the ear attuned when the muffled sound on the wind is first detected. It is a surreal experience.
Psalm 18 speaks of God – ‘Soaring on the wings of the wind.” – and in two other Psalms [51 & 135] we are told he – “He brings the wind out of His treasuries.”. In 2nd Samuel 22 David tells us – “He [God] was seen upon the wings of the wind”.
Of course all of these biblical descriptions are pictures, analogies between the natural and the spiritual. The truth however holds good. He comes to us, as we have seen in another meditation, in the quiet – on the gentle breeze – in the place where the spiritual ear is attuned to listen and the noise and rush of everyday life are for one reason or another set aside. Sometimes the quiet is enforced – perhaps through illness, the loss of a friend or lifelong companion. But in whatever situation we may find ourselves today may God give us ears attuned to His “Sounds on the Wind”.
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