Sorting Out the Noise
Effective listening for evangelization requires ignoring distractions, and also here is one weird trick for enjoying a volleyball game. If you are willing to be next-level weird.
So what I’ve been doing for the last month-and-some is sleeping (mostly) and wondering who turned up the volume. (It’s this, and blessedly not too much of this, which I advise you to scrupulously avoid, even just a tiny bite.) It is also school volleyball season. Not a quiet sport, alas.
Law of parenting: If it is important to your child, it is important to you.
If you’d like to stop right here and ponder that one weird trick for answering your vocation, you’re ahead of the game. God bless and go in peace.
If you want to hear about what it’s like to hear a volleyball game when the last thing you want to do is hear a volleyball game, keep reading.
So my long tall girl had a game last night, and it was worth a shot attempting to get there, even though my prospects of success were dubious. Threw a sleeping bag in the minivan so that I could exit and sleep after I’d hit my limit on sitting in the stands, and then let the SuperHusband do all the other work. It was a comparatively quiet game, as these things go, since it was a midweek rescheduled-reschedule. For the first set or so, caffeine (against sleep) and OSHA-rated earplugs (against noise) worked pretty well.
I wanted to see my kid play. It motivates.
Eventually, however, the sheer fatigue of subjecting the brain to more noise than it was ready for, even with the volume turned down, started to wear. So I decided to level-up my Embarrassing Things Parents Do from the Stands skills and experiment with throwing a pair of industrial earmuffs on over top the in-ear plugs. It was good.*
Now at this point in my parenting career I have sat through many, many, many volleyball games. I’m good at this. With two layers of industrial hearing protection, I could lean my head against the back wall behind the bleachers and close my eyes from the end of a point until the up-ref whistled for the next serve, and thus get maximal rest without missing any of the action. Most of the treble was radically down, but the whistle came through distinctly and at a civilized volume. Perfect.
Repeating for the next thing that happened: At this point in my parenting career, I have sat through very many volleyball games. I know what a game looks like, what it sounds like, what the coach is probably up to when you’re puzzling over what the coach is up to . . . all of that. Got it. Down.
But now, first time in my life, I started hearing the deep, resonating punch of the ball like I had never, ever in my life heard it before.
I doubted for a moment that this was possible. But sure enough, with my ears double-covered, this gorgeous thumping-thwack was coming through with every touch of the ball. I could know exactly how hard the ball was being hit each time. With my eyes closed, awaiting the whistle to serve, I could hear just how hard, or not, the player bounced the ball against the floor while she prepared for her serve.
It was a revelation. Just because it looks like a player is wailing on the ball or barely touching it doesn’t mean that’s what’s happening. The physics of the noise tells the truth. When the serve or a hit came over, I could hear just how hard, or not, it landed on the arms of the receiving player.
Reader, I’m not gonna lie: Now that I have tasted that? I never want to watch a game any other way. I’m sorry kid, I know that it’s extremely goofy-looking? But when you block out almost all the treble, and set up that bass to come through your bones instead of the air, you get an experience of the game that is much more visceral and much more in touch, literally, with what is happening on the court.
It was magnificent. If you are ever feeling brave, give it a shot.
This of course is an evangelization blog and not a volleyball blog, so let’s apply this lesson more broadly: There is a lot of noise distracting you from knowing the people you think you know.
If you observe closely and listen attentively, you can catch a lot. You can begin to make sense of what is happening in the other person’s life. You can go from a confused and dizzied spectator to someone who has some idea of what the other person is doing and experiencing, and you can possibly begin to even provide some on-point encouragement when it’s wanted.
But there is a lot of extraneous noise that is causing you to miss the deeper action:
Sin. (Theirs and yours both.)
Emotional baggage.
Your obligations to others.
Gossip, rumors, and terrible advice.
Good advice, but badly aimed.
The pain that comes from your being the brunt of their bad (or good) behavior.
All this noise makes it difficult to understand what the other person is truly experiencing. What are the forces acting most powerfully in this person’s life, and what are the flashy distractions that seem like a big deal but in fact aren’t hitting hard at all?
—> One of the things that makes a gifted confessor so treasured (as raw bonus to the ability to absolve sins, Fathers that is all the more we have a right to expect of you, thank you, keep up the good work) is his ability to hear a list of sins and hone in on the one, often the one barely even mentioned, or even the circumstance that is no sin at all, that is driving the others.
So. If you mean to be useful to someone in the spiritual realm, you have to learn how to sort out the meaningless noise from what matters most. It’s a skill that for most of us takes time and practice, trial and error, and likely a dose of serendipity.
Do what you can to learn how to listen more skillfully. Don’t give up on yourself when you miss, again, the reality that was in front of your face all along. Just keep on practicing.
Photo by Steve Carmichael, 2017 Canada Summer Games Women’s Volleyball, CC 2.0, via Wikimedia. My child is not in this photo, before you get any ideas. She’s not even Canadian, sheesh.
*For those being all like “avoiding sound is exactly the wrong way to treat hyperacusis,” let me assure you: When I’m not in an environment that literally causes hearing damage regardless (the rest of you should also wear ear plugs at indoor sporting events, seriously guys), I’m treating the thing pretty aggressively with intentional controlled noise exposure.
Alas, you sigh, most of this treatment is brought to us by Taylor Swift. See Law of Parenting at top, we do what we must. A curated playlist covers-over a multitude of sins.
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