Hearing

September 5, 2019

It began innocuously enough one day as I was adjusting the equalizer on my guitar. It sounded dull to me, so I was turning up the treble when Linda covered her ears and declared it was ringing too much. I was in my early fifties and knew then that I needed hearing aids. I was used to the ringing in my ears from the time I was a little kid, but hadn’t realized how much I was missing as time progressed. Stick your fingers in your ears while having a conversation, and you’ll get an idea of what my world was like. It was increasingly difficult for me to do my job as a pastor. Counseling sessions, especially with a soft-spoken woman, was all but impossible, and the babbling conversations of my little grandchildren were lost in a mumble of unidentifiable sounds and syllables.

Some men seem to have a hard time with admitting the need for hearing aids, but I was eager. My first stab at wearing them didn’t go so well; analog devices simply amplified everything, creating more noise than understanding. I gave up after a trial run, but a few years later, digitals came on the market, and I didn’t hesitate. They were so expensive I couldn’t afford top of the line, but the ones I bought changed everything. I could hear birds sing! I hadn’t heard that in so long, I had forgotten they did so. 

I was up early this morning. Our men’s prayer group meets at 6:00 am, so I’ve been wearing my present devices since about 5:30. They are the newer rechargeable ones, and as I was driving home at 10:30 tonight after a long day at the hospital, their charge finally faded and died. The silence was deafening, and suddenly I was thankful for these marvels of technology that enable me to participate in life to a degree that would be impossible without them. 

Christians often sing and talk about wanting to “see Jesus.” We speak of visions and dreams, but the characteristic word in Scripture is auditory, not visual. We are repeatedly instructed to listen, hear, pay attention. Jesus himself is described as the Word of God. Visual imagery is not absent, but heeding the commands is by far the most prominent feature of the Gospel revelation which is preached, not seen. I believe the reason for this is the power of the spoken and written word to connect us, even more than sight. A blind person can still be part of conversations, but the deaf is cut off. I am grateful tonight to be able (with assistance) to hear, and for the Holy Spirit who has opened my ears to the Truth of the Gospel, that I might be saved.