The Whistle

When Monster was a newborn I heard the sound of a crying baby everywhere. Even when he was dead asleep I swore I could hear him crying. Even when I was at work and Monster was miles away with his beloved Granda, I heard him crying. My husband says he heard it too so I know I’m not crazy. Or maybe we’re both crazy.

These days I hear the high whistle of hearing aid feedback. No matter where I am, no matter if Monster’s aids are turned off, batteries out, I swear I can hear that whistle. The whistle, when I am actually hearing it and not imagining it, is a sign that something is not right with Monster’s aids: they aren’t sitting correctly on the back of his ear, the mold isn’t pushed into his ear canal tightly enough, or, most likely, he has pulled them out in protest of boredom while strapped into his highchair/stroller/car seat. The whistle screams attention to the problem and pulls me into action to fix whatever is wrong. The whistle is actually, kind of, a good thing.

Except when I hear it all those other times. When Monster’s aids are tucked away for the night, turned off and resting in anticipation of another day of amplifying sound for my son, the whistle screams attention to what? My inadequacies? My failures? The fact that I constantly forget to incorporate sign language during the day? Or the guilt for the hour spent at the pool that could have been spent elsewhere with Monster’s hearing in tact? The looming sense that something is still not right? That something else will go wrong?

Just like Monster’s imagined cries were a constant reminder of what was not going right at home, the damn whistle is my reminder that I’m still afraid. The whistle I hear everywhere raises my level of stress, sends my blood pressure skyrocketing and leaves me frantically searching for the root of the problem in need of a solution, neither of which I can identify.

I hate that damn whistle. I hate not knowing the future for Monster. I hate learning sign language. I hate that I am already stressing about whether or not Monster will wear his hearing aids in school pictures. I hate that I even care about school pictures! I hate wishing that this wasn’t our forever permanence. I hate that I’m still mourning things that I didn’t realize I had to mourn.

I hate the whistle because it interrupts the normal moments with a reminder of what is our “new normal.” Family meals are interrupted with cleaning food off of his aid and reinserting it back in his ear while saying loudly and sternly, “NO! Hearing aids stay IN!” and Monster shakes his head no to show he knew all along. Quiet moments in the car turn into stress-filled minutes trying to wrestle the hearing aid out of my son’s mouth while still keeping my eyes on the road. Moments snuggling and wrestling with Monster are broken by the whistle when the contact jars his aid loose.

I know it will get better. I know his aids will someday simply just be a part of him. I know, I know, I know we are truly so blessed. This is minimal. This is a small price to pay for my son.

But I still hate the whistle.

Why U2 was the Most Worshipful Experience I've had in a Long Time...

This summer I went to the U2 concert. (I know, I know. Yes, you should be jealous, ‘cause it was freakin’ awesome). I’ve loved U2 since I was 16 years old and my first real boyfriend (who was not my boyfriend yet) danced with me to “Sweetest Thing” and later declared it to be our song. I don’t usually tell people that this is when I first fell in love with U2. Usually I tell people I fell in love with U2 when I bought their “All That You Can’t Leave Behind” album in the era of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Those guys were actually singing about something. Clearly the latter story seems like a bit “deeper” reason to love U2.

I thought about this as we waited for the concert to start, watching the giant screens flash statistics. How much money was being spent world wide on illegal drugs, how many people had died unnecessarily of hunger while we sat their sipping beers, how many children had been born to members of the crew while on tour (17 by the way). At this moment one of the women in our group turned to us and said, “That’s the one thing that I don’t like about U2, all their political stuff. Sometimes I just want to sit back and enjoy my rock concert.” Hmmm. That’s actually one of the things I love most about U2. They care. They aren’t just self-involved rock stars. Or maybe they are and they’ve just kept up an incredible act all these years. Either way, they are beckoning their fans to a higher calling. They don’t let their concert goers sit idly by resigned to their role as mere rock fans. They think more of us. They invite us to care too. All while enjoying an amazing rock concert. I don’t mind paying $10 for beers to participate in all that.

And last week I discovered another reason why I love Bono, The Edge, Larry and Adam. The U2 concert was perhaps the most worshipful experience I’ve had in a very long time. From the moment I sat down in my seat my heart fell into anticipation of God’s presence. I found myself noticing Him everywhere. Soldier Field felt as though it was brimming with hearts that cared about the same thing God’s heart cared about. As I sang along to Pride I was singing about Jesus, the one man who came in the name of love. Belting out “in the name of love/what more in the name of love”, I realized these words were worshipful. I was singing those words to God. The warm, perfect summer air was thick with God’s presence. Sunday Bloody Sunday was my heart’s cry to God.

And it was at that exact moment my mind began to articulate this idea of feeling closer to God, filled with more adoration and worship of Him than I had in a long time that my husband’s cousin Becky turned to me and said “This is better than any church service I’ve ever been to.” And all at once I felt both wholeheartedly in agreement and deeply conflicted. Hadn’t I just been thinking the same thing? And yet, this wasn’t a church service, and while I don’t know where Becky stands with God, I do know her conflicted relationship with the church. And it made me sad. It made me sad for her and the thousands of others in this stadium that sang along without knowing the power behind those words. And it made me sad that people, myself included, are finding a more powerful experience with God at a rock concert than they do at church.

I work in a church. I’m not in charge of worship I work with students. But I am constantly trying to help create experiences that draw my students closer to God. And I’m constantly trying to convince them that God is, in fact, at church. And, I’ll admit, sometimes I have to convince myself of the same thing. Why is it that my heart feels more in line with the heart of God at a U2 concert than it does at church? What are we doing wrong? Why did God feel closer at Soldier Field than He has at church in a long time?

Maybe it’s just my church that feels irrelevant. Or maybe it’s just me. Lately I’ve had a hard time singing worship hymns that feel so dry when everywhere I look I see things that make my heart long for God’s intervention. There is so much hurting, so much pain, so much corruption and evil that I’ve never in my life wanted so much to see Jesus move in actual, tangible, concrete ways. I read the Gospels with a desire to see how Jesus would respond today. What would he say to our modern day Pharisees? (And whom would he identify as one?) How would he heal the woman next door who’s so addicted to drugs and alcohol that most days she barely functions? What would he say to the girl who was kidnapped, trafficked and now sells her body because she knows no other way? The more I learn about injustice, the more desperate and useless I feel. The more I see what is dirty and rough and hard in the world, the more complicated I understand the situation to be. I have more problems to bring to God and fewer answers than I did when I became a Christian 10 years ago.

And perhaps that’s why U2 was such a jarring experience for me. For the first time in a long time, I felt myself crying out to God straight from the depths of my heart. And my voice wasn’t alone. I was in a stadium full of people asking God the same thing. And that felt really worshipful. “How long, how long must we sing this song?” How long indeed.

Ears to Hear

As I stood in the parking lot of the children’s hospital, moments after the life changing words “severe hearing loss” my mind got stuck on all the words of love my son had never heard. Thirteen and a half months worth of sweet whispers and “I love yous.” Thirteen and a half months worth of messages my heart sought to speak.

Today, Monster has hearing aids, and I’ve wasted no time making up for the months of silence. I say I love you in as many ways that I can, as many times as I can. I tell him he’s good and he’s loved and he’s treasured. I tell him all the things he didn’t hear for the first year of his life.

However months into his diagnosis bedtime is still the part that breaks my heart. Perhaps it’s because just about every “going to sleep” moment of his short life involved a routine that was inundated with sounds. From the Rock-a-bye Baby! U2 album that my husband and I swore was completely necessary in Monster’s ability to fall asleep, to the bedtime stories I just knew were filling him with rich language and imagination, to the prayers for his character and heart for God, all of these rituals were as much for me as they were for him. There was comfort in those sounds, in the routine that sent my son into slumber. For a few nights after we found out he couldn’t hear I still continued to press play on the stereo even though it wasn’t at a decibel Monster could hear. It felt so wrong without it. Too quiet. Too empty.

I think, though, that the larger reason that made bedtime so difficult had to do with the words I had always chosen to leave my son with. Since he entered my life I have laid him in his crib with words that spoke to his worth. We love you. Mom loves you, Dad loves you, Nona and Granda love you. God loves you. You are good and sweet and kind hearted. You are loved so, so much. For thirteen and a half months silence resided where I thought had been powerful words of love.

I wasn’t the only one sending Monster off to dreamland on affirming words of love. Unbeknownst to me, my dad, Monster’s primary caregiver on days that I work, had also spent the last months giving Liam a message of worth before he went to sleep. As he puts it, “The last thing he should know before going to sleep is that he’s good and he’s loved.”

And that right there is why bedtime is still heartbreaking. Monster doesn’t wear his hearing aids to sleep. He is unable to hear anything just before I lay him in his crib. In those last fleeting moments before I leave him for the night silence resounds. We have a new bedtime routine. Now we read our stories and say our prayers and then take his aids out. We go upstairs and turn off the light. And I hold him close and kiss his ears three times. And then we rock back and forth as I continue to say those same words I always said. I know he can’t hear them, but for some reason I can’t hold them in. I can’t bear to not say them. I have to believe, someway, somehow Monster has ears to hear what I need him to know. Maybe his physical ears can’t do that, but I continue to communicate these words of love that hopefully he’ll feel in his depths, words that his heart will hear. For myself, and for him.