it’s a given that everyone has full use of their five senses, yet i think we’ve all had that moment in life where we’ve pretended to be blind, deaf, or dumb. i remember trying to make it across a messy living room without peeking or stepping on one of my legos (yes, I was a lego child). blindness was a particular favorite possibly because it was the easiest. trying to keep me quiet for more than ten minutes at a time was apparently difficult, according to parental accounts, and though i’ve been accused of selective hearing on occasion, it’s harder than it…sounds.
so tonight in service, a young man came who needed a sign language interpreter. as we sang part of “at the cross,” i happened to look his way and realized…
our interpreter was telling him the words to the song, but he would never actually hear the melody. with that realization came a whole host of others. she could repeat preacher’s words to him, but he would never hear the compassion and sincerity in preacher’s voice.
the sound of silence, empty silence is a despairing thought all on its own. i can’t begin to imagine what it’d be like when made a reality. i can’t study, think or sleep in absolute silence. yet this young man has lived for who knows how long without the ability to sense the feelings and emotions of others.
then again, he’s spent his lifetime studying non-verbal communication. gestures, a lip curled, eyebrow arched, and a shoulder shrugged. he picks up on this faster than most and responds accordingly.
most importantly, though, there are hands. hands that communicate words and all the emotional power they convey. plato called words signs and they are. signs that point to emotions and ideas in a way that really, no other form of communication can. to open a person who is deprived of sound to a small part of the way the rest of the world perceives and communicates…
in this light, communication is not just a mere means to an end – it is the conduit whereby things of the temporary world transcend into ideas that reverberate through all eternity.
