If you can’t hear God, check how many other voices you’ve got on speaker.

Quiet things are inaudible in a loud room, and that is a fact about the room rather than about the quiet thing. Between music, notifications, podcasts and conversation, there may be no gap in the day where anything subtle could register. Before concluding that nothing is being said, it is worth checking whether there was any silence for it to arrive in.

Build one deliberately empty stretch into your week: a walk with nothing playing, a few minutes before sleep, the commute without headphones. Expect it to feel uncomfortable at first. Leave the space open anyway.