A still big voice in the noise

Last week, in the Church Times'; Prayer for the week: There was an interesting prayer for those who don't do quiet well. It is by Martin Wroe.

They say you're available
on certain conditions. Quiet ones.
That if I can find an air of
 tranquillity
It carries that still small voice.
But I don't do quiet, stillness.
I am not tranquil except when
I am asleep
And then I am not available
As far as I know.
So, what's the chance of a still
big voice in the noise,
Of hearing you in the roaring
traffic, ...

Meryl Doney's comments on the prayer are, to my mind, pretty fair enough. However, there was a response in the letters this week from Mrs Viven Moores
Sir, - Meryl Doney chooses a "prayer for those who don't do silence" (Prayer for the Week, 4 January). Of course God can speak to us anywhere, but why should he have to shout?

Now perhaps I missed something about this, but I must admit I felt that it was avoiding the challenge. So I wrote back (though I doubt it'll be published).

I had taken Meryl Doney's "prayer for those who don't do silence" as something quite positive. As a Myers-Briggs (MBTI) extrovert (E), I came to realise that much spirituality teaching has tended to be by introverts for introverts. So I'd like to respond to Viven Moores' comment "God can speak to us anywhere, but why should he have to shout?" It's not a matter of God shouting: it's a matter of how we process information.

For introverts (in the MBTI 'I' sense), being quiet and processing internally is important. And I have, over years of spiritual practice, learnt to appreciate the value of silence and solitude -but it's not my native spiritual language. If Deity is everywhere, God doesn't need to wait for us to be quiet before speaking to us -we might need rather to learn to tune into God's disclosure in the everyday and to be helped in our discernment by being in conversation with others. Not all activity and noise is necessarily distraction.

Given that it is likely that the majority of the national population are MBTI E's, we church people surely need to be able to offer spiritual formation in the native language of E's as well as I's.