September 26, 2005
Listen
I spent an hour and a half the other day in a soundproof room surrounded by fancy electronic stuff all designed and maneuvered under the skilled hands of a doctor of audiology. My hearing, or lack of it, was the occasion for our meeting.
The audiologist didn’t use earphones, but squirmy and irritating little gizmos stuck in each of my ears inflated to keep out extraneous noise. He sat in an adjacent room looking at me through a glass darkly and started covering his mouth when he suspected I was reading his lips. To my surprise, I was, and did, trying to get a leg up on the tests.
My problem turned out to be high frequency deficiency in both ears, the kind that turns cocktail party conversation into white noise. Of course, cocktails can do the same thing, but I couldn’t blame it on that anymore and still maintain my friendship with Bill W.
My graphs showed normal conversation volumes to be acceptable. And though a “digital hearing instrument” (”hearing aid” is apparently no longer PC) might enhance that somewhat, it was left up to me. My vanity was charmed for a moment when I was told that the recommended “instrument” was the same kind musicians use, especially brass players with our usual accompanying tinnitus. The literature said it also “addresses common wearer frustrations, such as problems with the sound of your own voice.” As that’s a pleasure enjoyed by most of us preachers, I sure don’t want anything to impede that.
So all things considered, including the price and the fact that Medicare considers such aids “cosmetic” and refuses to pay, I decided to take CP’s advice (she’d encouraged me to take the tests in the first place), stop worrying about hearing, and start listening. Actually, if I remember correctly, that was more or less the gist of Pastoral Theology 101 back in my seminary days.
[Visit Episcopal Relief and Development at http://www.er-d.org/ to make a donation to Katrina or Rita Relief or Episcopal Migration Ministries at emm@episcopalchurch.org to volunteer to assist displaced people with housing.]