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From Art Historian, Dr Jim Harris

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Just now there’s an exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, where I work, called 'Storms War and Shipwrecks’. ÌýIt’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.

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I love my job, but it brings very little in the way of blazing headlines, crashing triumphs and whirlwind success. ÌýBeing a teacher and museum curator practically redefines ‘mild-mannered’.

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But the other day I had an email from a student. ÌýIt was polite (you have to like a polite student) and it was kind and it thanked me for some classes I taught this term. ÌýThat was all. ÌýBut 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. ÌýHe was a prophet and, since he was so unhappy, God said he’d come and meet him.

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What happened next was extraordinary. ÌýWhile Elijah hid in a cave, there was a wind that split the mountains. There was an earthquake. There was a fire. ÌýAnd then there was the sound of sheer silence. ÌýAnd in the sound of sheer silence Elijah met his God and knew what he had to do next.

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Sometimes, I reckon, we spend too much time looking for the wind, the earthquake and the fire.Ìý I know I do.Ìý It’s as if those excitements, the extraordinary things of the world, are the only ones that tell us anything or make life worth living. ÌýBut they’re not.Ìý They’re just noise.

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There’s a lot of noise in the world right now.Ìý We seem to have brought down wind, earthquake and fire on ourselves and it’s impossibly hard to know the way forward.

Perhaps, then, we need to do what seems impossible: we keep quiet, we wait and we listen for something else.

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And eventually out of the sheer silence someone will say something polite and kind and wise and we’ll know what to do next.Ìý I hope so.