Noises Off...

...Ordinarily when I'm standing in for some absent cleric, I will stay in his - or sometimes of course these days her - manse, rectory, cottage, shed, what have you.

On this occasion, though, that was not the option, as said cleric [he] was on leave caring for his wife [she] who sadly was horribly ill at home [theirs]. She is better now which is wonderful.

So it was to the local, semi-decent hotel one adjourned. A handsome place, though not in totally tip-top condition it must be said. Lumpy mattresses are not a problem but chef's undercooked tuna most certainly was!

Not wishing to venture out, evenings were spent quietly reading in the bar. Well, quietly actually was very much not the thing.

For there was a party of persons dispatched for some - doubtless - worthy secular work project, who insisted on flooding the place with wall-to-wall noise. Of particular note was a young - the youngest of the group - woman whose voice was as loud as her opinions were tedious.

How one growled as one tried to concentrate on a decent claret plus compendium of Orwell's novels!

Retiring to bed one evening, one's ears were further assailed by the very sounds of the most urgent of wails emanating from a neighbouring room. Not panic, not pain, but - how one suddenly noted - the very purest of pleasure! 'Twas indeed most certainly that very same loud young woman giving vent to the most breathless of carnal delights.

So what in such circumstances does one do, apart from nearly choke from embarrassment? An unintended sight of sexual congress in an open space, as can so easily happen in rural areas, is readily managed by an aversion of one's eyes or a change of direction. But a sound is far less easily obliterated.

One could hum 'Jerusalem' terribly loudly, one could turn up the volume on the television to its highest, but nothing really fully takes away the hearing of the climactic thing.

Then it struck me. This noise - joyous, totally unrestrained and completely abandoned to the pleasure of the moment - was simply youth's delight in everything it does and is. No qualms, no cares, no thoughts of anything but being alive and giving thanks for that living. Pure grateful, noisy being.

So, irksome still when one is trying to read dear George Orwell in peace, but empathetic now to a young person giving strident voice to life and to living.

There is a lot of shouting in the Psalms - bang loud the drum and cymbal - and so now I realise why there should be.

Life is to be lived loud and proud. Let the Amen resound, not indeed be muttered sorrowfully as if an apologetic murmur.