It’s been so quiet around here that I discovered I have tinnitus.

I shouldn’t be surprised … and it makes perfect sense that I would have it. I’ve certainly been exposed to my share of loud noises. 

But, until this Covid isolation, I really hadn’t noticed it at all. That might say something about how infrequently I am in silence. 

If anyone should have tinnitus, it should be my daughter, Karlie. When she was weeks old, she was in a gym, filled with high school students kicking basketballs and volleyballs and yelling at the top of their lungs. Somehow she slept right through all the noise, but you’d think that maybe it would have brought on some tinnitus effects. 

So far nothing for her.   

But then there is my wife. She spent much of her youth listening to quartet music … mostly because her dad sang in a quartet. It’s hardly the kind of music that you would think could produce tinnitus, but she has developed a rather pronounced case.

… Which leads me to think that my parents were upset at the wrong music when I was listening to my rock music at levels that were known to fry speakers.

I also went to concerts – a lot of them – in my late teens and early twenties.

It was not uncommon at those concerts to have difficulty hearing the person right beside you tell you he thought the band was great. You just guessed what he was saying by the huge smile on his face.

There was one concert I went to, however, that beat all other concerts for causing my potential hearing damage. 

It was an Emerson Lake and Palmer (ELP) concert – and it was outdoors, no less. I was more that halfway back from the stage in the football stadium, but when the dust settled after the concert, I had ringing in my ears for three days!

I had never experienced that before.

My ears should have been ruined, but they weren’t. I still had great hearing and I think my hearing now is still pretty good for someone my age. 

I don’t have any trouble hearing most people, as opposed to my quartet-listening wife. 

In the midst of all this isolation, I find that I am alone more in my office. There is nothing happening outside my office either. All there is is silence. In that silence that surrounds me, I am starting to pick up some white noise in my ears.

Some people pay money to buy white noise recordings so they can calm down or get to sleep at night. I get my white noise for free.

I understand that what I have is nothing – it’s minor, not really even a bother. But I am wondering what else I will discover about myself as our isolation continues. 

… Well, I better turn up the iTunes on my computer so I don’t fall asleep with all this white noise in my ears. 

Here’s the thing: When our world is full of sound, sometimes it’s hard to hear what God might be saying to us. Our attention is on other things, turned to other sources. Right now, while we are experiencing more time to be quiet and think, while we encounter a season where we can actually hear what’s going on between our ears, take the time to try to hear God. He is saying things to you in nature, through other people, in your thoughts and, ultimately, through His Word the Bible. Let’s not miss this opportunity to tune Him in. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you been using silence to your advantage lately? Leave your comments and questions below.