everybody's all about tumblr, anyways.

hearing in the moment.

Coming back from Thanksgiving break, I got really sick on the airplane and my ears completely closed up for a few days. It was a really terrible experience, but through it God put these thoughts in my head. I typed them out at 4 in the morning last night, haha.

I always thought that when my hearing returned, it would be in one sudden, euphoric cacophony of sounds. That in one popping instant, or maybe even a few crackling seconds, everything would become clear and I would hear things as I had never heard them before. I imagined a sudden revelation of the tone of my professor’s voice, the rush of the wind in the trees, any sort of outside noise being crisper, clearer, more beautiful than it ever had been. I longed for that moment. I had been without full hearing for two days. I felt like an outsider. I felt like everyone around me was part of something that I could not join. I felt alienated and frustrated. I wanted so badly to be how I was. I wanted so badly to be better. I woke up one morning, and my left ear was open. And then it closed again. And then the right one opened when I stepped in the shower. But I hardly cared to revel in the sounds of the water against the tile; I was merely frustrated at the one ear that minutes before had been open, but was now closed. One ear was not enough. I wanted both ears. All sounds! All at once! Give me noise. Give me fulfillment. Give me my hearing. And so my day went by, all heard through my right ear. And another day has gone by. And here I am. And I’m not sure when it happened, but I think both of my ears are open now. And there was no moment. There was no euphoria, no revelation, no grand sensation of sound and life and wonder. It all just kind of sounds like life. And I can hardly remember what it was like to be without hearing, but I know that this just sounds normal and I wanted something so much more. It’s like I’m still waiting, not fully trusting that this is actually what it is to have full hearing. Because there must be more. I know that there is more. I felt the longing for more. Give me fulfillment. Give me my hearing.

But isn’t this what we do? We sit here in deafness, in darkness, in pain, saying to God, “Give me fulfillment.” Give me my hearing. Or my eyes. Or my comfort. Give it all to me, all right now, because I’m longing for it and I know I’ll appreciate it if you would just give it to me now in one sweeping, grand gesture of your power and I swear I’ll appreciate it, I’ll recognize it for everything it is, just give it to me now. And we wait, but there is no moment. And things do change and shift and we can hear a bit better, but there is no moment. And one day we are sitting in our room and we realize that we’re better. That we can hear. That the pain is gone. And it happened at some point but there was no moment. It happened so slowly. Did it even happen? Is this healing? Because things should be brighter. And why aren’t they brighter, God, didn’t I feel that longing and shouldn’t that let me know that things can be brighter than this? Because I’m still longing for it God, and I wanted that moment. I wanted that moment.

And in the selfish, pitiful way of humankind, we forget what it was like to be deaf. To be in pain. And we forget how badly we wanted out and how wonderful it is that He took us out because we just wanted that moment. That moment that won’t come now, here, in this broken place. And we forget that we were disgustingly broken but now we’re at least one stitch better and it’s nothing of our own doing. I can shake my head and blink my eyes and bite my thumb but I cannot make my hearing return or make my eyes see or make the pain leave. He takes us out of our brokenness, whispering softly, shining steadily, healing quietly, and we come out on the other side and forget that we are no longer broken, simply because we are caught up in our longing for a moment we never had and are still longing for.

I don’t want to be caught up in longing for these moments. I know that they are real. I know that there is more. But I know that one breath ago, I was more broken than I am now. And that was a moment. And so is this. And so is this. And they don’t come with clamoring cymbals or flashing stars, but this was a moment. And I’m being made into something that I’m not, but long to be. And I know that. In this moment. In this moment, I can hear. And this is a moment.

i wish i had facebook, so i could post this.

The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish… And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against.. That’s what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn’t bother me a bit when people say, ‘Merry Christmas’ to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it’s just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don’t like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that’s a sign that I’m getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her ‘How could God let something like this happen?’ (regarding Hurricane Katrina). Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, ‘I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?

In light of recent events…terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said okay.

Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with ‘WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.’

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace…Are you laughing yet? Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it… no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don’t sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards, Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

"In the obscure backrooms of my memory, there is a gauzy portrait of me drumming pots and pans on the kitchen floor. I am a bumbling infant, top-heavy, lower-lipped, thumb-suckling, encountering gravity for the first time, buffered by an afghan laid out on the linoleum, banging the consequential music of kitchen utensils: a chopstick on a glass lid, a plastic spoon on a rice steamer, the tap dancing of a whisk on a box of spaghetti. This is my first performance. I am eleven months old. I am a drum major. I am a ragtime rhythm section. I am a wild animal knocking rocks on the hard shell of mother earth, the prehistoric paradiddle. I am nerves and muscle gaining strength."

oh, the eloquence of your words.

oh hai.