Deafness and Silence

I've been partially deaf in one ear for almost a month now. I have, by my own doing, a perforated eardrum...it's an irritating condition somewhat like swimmer's ear, but the "water" in there won't be draining out until a few more weeks. It got better during the course of my Holy Week retreat in the mountains, but I had to go and make matters worse by fiddling in that ear with a dangerous cotton swab, and am consequently back at square one.

The most annoying thing about being "deaf" in one ear is that I can't use my super sensitive powers of hearing anymore...I can normally pick up the slightest beep of my cellphone over the din of ten thousand screaming streetchildren, or the barest under-the-breath utterance or complaint. I'm particularly adept at catching kids using foul language - hell hath no fury like Ate Honey hearing muttered swear words from the mouths of her angels.

But lately, it's been quiet on the front...because I can hardly hear anything. I cannot even properly hear myself sing or talk, so I either sing too loudly (and off-key, I suspect) or talk too softly (were it that it was the other way around!!), so I don't do too much of either. It's getting to be a bother for others as well, because they have to repeat into my good ear whatever it is they just said, as well as yell a little more loudly to get my attention should my back be turned on them. Not very cute, especially if you're Kuya Joe Dean in a quiet church, hollering the abbreviated endearment of my already deceptively sweet nickname: "Hon! Hon! HON....!!!"

But somehow, even this affliction is turning out to be a good thing - as all things are intended, if we believe God's promise in Romans 8:28. With my one deaf ear, I'm forced to listen inwardly a little more: the volume of the outside world's racket is muted to some extent. Chatter is just a dull droning sound, because I can't pick up too many words - and that's a relief, because chatter is the utterly useless waste of words and saliva anyway. I don't hear the nasty whispered side-comments either, which is just as well - what you don't know, can't hurt you. I'm constrained instead to listen to what's going on within, and to strike up a conversation with He that is in me instead of being distracted by he who is in the world. Because I cannot sing with confidence, I LISTEN to songs instead, and to what their lyrics might mean. It's a good way to detach yourself from the world and withdraw into your own quiet space - because you can't hear what's going on around you!

The other night, I was telling friends how distressing it was for me to find out that some people just cannot seem to stay quiet. It's as if they're allergic to a single moment of silence, and they have to fill it up with sound, even if it means chattering nonsensically. I say that there are times for stupid shallow senseless conversation - sure, those moments can be fun - but only with people who I know can likewise appreciate meaningful and purposeful silences. Fortunately, all of the people who I consider good friends have that sensitivity to silence. Then again, I wouldn't appreciate them as much if they didn't.

Anyway. Now I'll shut up and silently marinate in the words and thoughts of Max Picard, quoted by the Benedictine monk Andrew Marr, as he talks about the value of silence:

"The German philosopher Max Picard has written on silence with greater elegance and depth than any other writer I have come across. He begins by telling us that 'Silence is nothing merely negative; it is not the mere absence of speech. It is a positive, a complete world in itself.'

"Here, Picard is pointing to the distinction that De Waal notes between taciturnitas & silentium (taciturnity and silence) Taciturnitas simply means not speaking, and 'silentium is the wider understanding being still and silent.'

"This positive and substantive reality of silence is better expressed in the German title of Picard’s book Die Welt des Schweigens. The verb schweigen is active rather than passive; it denotes silence as a purposeful act. Picard elaborates on the substantive quality of silence by claiming that 'it is a primary, objective reality, which cannot be traced back to anything else...There is nothing behind it to which it can be related except the Creator Himself.'

"Benedict shows his own awareness of this substantial reality of silence by saying that 'we sometimes ought to refrain from speaking good words on account of the intrinsic value of silence.' (RB 6:2)

"The distinction between taciturnitas and silentium is clarified if we take note of how silence and words can be compatible while taciturnity by itself has little or nothing to do with silence. In fact, silence requires a relationship with words in order to be itself. Picard says: 'Speech came out of silence, out of the fullness of silence. The fullness of silence would have exploded if it had not been able to flow out into speech.

"Picard deepens this dialectic by saying: 'There is something silent in every word, as an abiding token of the origin of speech. And in every silence there is something of the spoken word, as an abiding token of silence to create speech.'

"We can agree with this statement and still protest that we hear many words that have nothing to do with silence. The word for this phenomenon is 'chatter.' We can hear words participating in the Word (the Logos) but chatter is totally disconnected from the Word. Music has the same dialectic with silence when it is music and not chatter. Many of the most powerful moments in music are the rests, those brief moments when no music sounds. The opening of Schubert’s great Sonata in B-flat is a particularly dramatic example. Here, the grand pauses that punctuate the brief, tentative phrases and the off-key tremolos in the bass overwhelm the sounds emerging from the silence."

Silent emphasis mine. Sigh. Sometimes deafness can be bliss. Everyone should try it some time.