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Good Morning, A few years ago on this programme, John Humphrys was interviewing the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. It was the day after the Beslan massacre and the presenter asked the minister the difficult question: where was God when those children were being killed? Williams requested permission to take a moment before answering. What followed was either an awkward hesitation or a brave and necessary pause. There was complete radio silence for eight, nine, maybe ten seconds – a long time on live radio, an eternity on a programme that relies on rapid reaction. The sound of a person thinking about what they should say before saying it created a crackling tension in the studio; whilst Humphrys waited respectfully for the Archbishop, you could feel the producers urging him to say something lest listeners think the station had gone off air. I can’t fully recall the words Rowan Williams used after that pause. But I remember the silence. I think the Archbishop knew that even the cleverest response would fail to explain such a raw and painful event and that this most difficult of theological questions was impossible to answer to everyone’s satisfaction. In resisting the temptation to say something immediately for the sake of filling the air waves, he was willing to risk sounding as though he had no answer at all. And yet, in a way, his silence was part of the answer. An acknowledgement that some questions can’t be answered with words. That pause, fourteen years ago, can still give us pause today at a time when it feels as if the culture is growing increasingly intolerant of the considered response. There is an ever quickening demand for speedy reaction, instant opinion, ready certainties – and we have the technology to facilitate this urge. This is an age that values reflexes over reflection. Where a sound bite is better than a sound chewed. Giving a bad answer is better than giving no answer and saying nothing is a kind of weakness. Reflecting is for holy men and mirrors. This addiction to reacting is, I’d suggest, a tyranny that’s corrupting both private and public discourse. It’s in danger of making us impatient with the things that really do require careful rumination, time and thought: the painstaking brokering of a peace deal, the reading of a book, the education of a child – all the complex areas of human activity that shun the fast answer. Fools will continue to rush in to fill the silence – especially when their identity is built on having to say something and say it quickly, loudly and first. But silence is golden when it protects us from saying something needless or glib. On the day of Christ’s death the mob taunted him with a question: ‘Where is your God now?’ Christ gave no comment. Not because he didn’t have anything to say, but because I think he knew that his silence was part of the answer.