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Good morning. The first impression inside a prison is often one of unrelenting noise. Jangling keys and clanging doors, blaring televisions, cries of distress and shouts of rage, echo through cavernous spaces day and night. That’s why I was interested to read a news story about an experiment at Buckley Hall Prison in Rochdale. Inmates have been issued with earplugs costing 99p so that they can block out the noise and get a good night’s sleep. The results have been remarkable. Violence has halved and there’s been a dramatic increase in the number of prisoners who say they feel safe. I’m reading a book titled A World of Silence by Swiss Catholic writer Max Picard. He reflects on the cost to modern society of losing our capacity for silence. The book was written in 1948 but it seems very relevant now. Rather amusingly, Picard devotes a chapter to the intrusive effects of radio. He laments that “There is no silence any longer. Even when the radio is turned off the radio-noise still seems to go on inaudibly.” I wonder what he would say today if he could see us plugged into earphones, tapping away on mobile phones, fleeing from silence by every kind of distraction. Picard argues that this constant exposure to noise makes us “formless, undecided inwardly and externally, with no definite limits and standards.” That seems like a description of the national mood in the run up to the general election. Buffeted by social media, swayed by fake news and algorithms, we might feel that we’re dissolving in a sea of sounds, confused and disorientated and wondering where wisdom is to be found. In the Bible and the Christian mystical tradition, the quest for truth is inseparable from silent contemplation on the revelation of God in creation. According to the Hebrew Bible, the prophet Elijah encountered God, not in the earthquake, wind and fire but in a still small voice (1 Kings 19:11-13). It might seem counter-intuitive in this turbulent time leading up to the election, but maybe the most effective way to discern wisdom amidst the hubbub is to allow ourselves some daily silence to listen to the still, small voice of conscience speaking in the depths of our being. That experiment in Rochdale prison suggests the destructive effects of constant noise on our capacity to live together peacefully and without fear. Beyond all our costly technological fixes, maybe we need to rediscover the healing power of silence in our broken society.