My husband has gone to have his hearing checked, as I write this piece. He is concerned that he does not pick up everything said to him. I wonder sometimes if he perhaps has “selective deafness”?!?
My nephew was born with complete hearing loss on his left side. Unless he could see their face, he had no idea the person was speaking if they sat on his left hand side.
Other times we might misinterpret what someone has said because we didn’t hear properly, or perhaps because we didn’t pay attention to what was being said.
It was during the Covid pandemic, when we all had to wear masks, that people became aware of how much we rely on visual signals and lip reading to hear what someone is saying.
I don’t know what it is like to have no hearing, whether from birth so as to have no sense of sound, or whether to have had normal hearing and then lost it. I would imagine it can make the hearing impaired person feel isolated, excluded and withdrawn.
In our faith are we sometimes spiritually deaf? We may never have had a faith, or had a faith and then lost it. We may have “selective” deafness, only hearing those words we want to hear. Do we sometimes “miss-hear” or misunderstand choosing to interpret the Word to suit our own agenda?
One thing is certain; God never excludes us even when we have been deaf to His word.
Evelyn Glennie is a profoundly deaf professional percussionist. She performs her music barefoot, so that she can “feel” the music through her feet using her sense of touch and vibration. She “feels” the higher tone drums through her upper body and the lower tones through her lower body.
God includes all in his generous and all-encompassing love. We can feel God, we can hear God, if we have “ears to hear.”
Prayer: Loving and generous God, forgive us when we close our ears to your word. Forgive us when we only hear what suits us. Thank you that even when we are deaf to your words, we can hear you in other ways and help us to “come to our senses” and experience your grace and mercy in so many different ways. Amen