I’ve been thinking a lot lately about hearing. Last week I put on a hearing aid for the first time, and while I think this device is simply amazing, there are certain ways that it tries to imitate the workings of the ear that just aren’t quite there yet.
Let me list some of the things that it does that are amazing. First, it has a phone app that goes with it that helps me choose which direction it will focus its hearing. This is so helpful! Especially, when I’m taking Emerson somewhere and she has to sit in her car seat in the back seat. Before I got this hearing aid it was so frustrating because I couldn’t hear her well enough to have a true conversation. But with this new hearing aid I have I can click the app and have it focus it’s hearing on the voices behind me! And yesterday, for instance, when I took Emerson to Vacation Bible School, we had a 30-minute conversation without me once saying, “speak up, Em, I didn’t catch that!” This hearing aid is a game changer.
But even though this hearing aid does some amazing things, I find myself sometimes overwhelmed in some situations while I wear it. Vacation Bible School, for instance! 35 kids running around the sanctuary, many of them wanting to tell “Counselor Pops” a story or two...wow! Talk about overload! When I come home from VBS, the first thing I do is take off my hearing aid and take a nap! I’m exhausted from hearing everything!
What I find myself doing when I get in that overload mode is that I start shutting down. I start tuning out everything! I hope someday that they will figure out a way to help folks truly zoom in on the very voice we want to hear and just shut out the noise. But these new hearing aids are improved and I’m so excited to see and hear the direction they are going! They are doing God’s work!
As I was thinking about this “tuning in” ability in our ears, I started thinking of a time when I was NOT tuning in very well...a time I was listening to all the wrong voices. For me, that was my first year of college. For the first time in my life, I was away from home. Away from the voices that formed and shaped me. Away from going to church every Sunday! And I took advantage of it! I mean when someone was ready to party...I was right there with them! If someone wanted to do something that was especially outside the “moral bounds” of my parent’s value system, I was almost giddy to give it a go! It was awesome!
Until I had to come home for the summer! Because in our house there were certain “house rules” that I totally didn’t want to follow anymore. So, when I went home for summer, let’s just say there were more than a few heated arguments around our dinner table. And one night, I had had enough! I didn’t care what the rules were, I was an adult, and I didn’t need to follow them anymore! So, I packed a few things into a backpack, hopped on the motorcycle and off I drove...” Easy Rider” style! (Just an aside here. One I’m not very proud of. Mom and Dad always insisted we wear a helmet when we rode the motorcycle, but I knew that you didn’t have to. In South Dakota helmets were optional. So just to tick Mom and Dad off, I left the helmet right by the door as a symbol that I wasn’t going to take any of “their” crap anymore! Boy that showed them! What an idiot!)
We were living in Rapid City at the time, and my plan was to head for the Black Hills and camp for the summer. I had already quit my job. It was time to learn to live off the land. The problem was that I had no clue what I was doing! I was totally winging it! As I headed out to the hills, I turned off Hwy 385 and onto Rochford Road. Rochford road at that time was a gravel road that wound its way through the black hills and finally settled on a McBride favorite campground: Black Fox. That was going to be my new home. Finally, I was going to be free.
Unfortunately, just as I turned onto Rochford Road, it started to rain. Just a sprinkle at first, but soon that sprinkle turned into torrential rain. I mean this felt like Tropical Storm Debby! I should have pulled over, but I was too mad to do that. I just kept going and going and going until finally my motorcycle sputtered to a stop. (I learned later that I was out of gas). And there I was, in the middle of nowhere, soaked from head to foot, and exhausted.
Luckily, I saw a little fire road just around the bend. I pushed my Honda 360 down the road and decided to “ride out” the storm under a pine tree. I pulled off my boots (there was 2 inches of water in my boots) and pulled out a blanket and tried to sleep. Ok. I’m not very proud of this, but while I tried to sleep it felt like there were 50 grasshoppers that tried to get into my blanket! And... was I imagining this or was it a reality...but were those coyote yips and howls getting closer? And just when I nodded off to sleep, I heard a huge boom of thunder and right after that a crack of lightning struck not 50 feet from the tree I was under!
I don’t know how I survived that night, but I did. And when I woke up, it was still raining. But after I did a bit of exploring there was some good news. I was only about ½ a mile from the campground!
The next 3 days it continued to rain. And I continued to starve! On the morning of the 4th day, I was about to steal some food from the neighboring camp, when I heard a familiar sound. I looked up and there was mom and dad, driving our red VW around the curve. Their windows were open, and they looked like they were road hunting for pheasants. As soon as they saw me the car stopped, and I headed towards the door. I was so exhausted I didn’t care anymore. Mom and Dad didn’t say a word...a wise move by them. Dad got out of the car, opened the trunk, and pulled out a can of gas. He filled up the tank to the motorcycle, put on his helmet, kick started it, and headed for home. Mom took one look at me and said, “I guess you’re driving.” As I pulled out, she unwrapped an egg salad sandwich for me...my favorite.
To my parents’ credit, they never once used that moment against me. And as I drove home, I found myself turning a bit. I found myself actually thankful for a mom and dad who never failed to broadcast their signal of love toward me. Even when I wasn’t listening, even when my radio dial was tuned into everything but them, they kept loving and praying and reaching and looking and searching for the real Brook. And that morning, because of their love, I started to find him again.
Oh, don’t think for a moment that my “Easy Rider” days were done. I was only a first-year student, right? But eventually I learned that as cool as Peter Fonda is riding a Harley, it just wasn’t really me.
Your friend and pastor, glad for people in my life who had every reason to give up on me but didn’t, Brook
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