via Slur
It’s not easy for those losing their hearing to admit this truth. When you raise the level of your voice so the hearing-challenged can understand your words, they pretend something different and shout “you don’t have to yell.” They don’t even know they’re yelling, because they can’t hear. They live in a Charlie Brown world where most of the conversation, sounded more like, “blah blah, blah blah wa aw wa blah.” The slurred sound of someone’s voice makes no sense, they can’t distinguish the notes, and it’s frustrating.
Charlie Brown represents a time period for me. There was a time in high school and college when I could not get enough. I knew what was coming and I still laughed my head off every time Lucy pulls the football away. Aaugh! In college I also spent a lot of my time reading The Gospel According to Peanuts, written by a Presbyterian minister, Robert L. Short. Sometimes when I speak, or write, my impression is that my hearers or listeners are hearing the “blah blah, blah blah wa aw wa blah” rather than the actual thoughts and words I’m communicating. No amount of wishful thinking on my part can change this it seems. So just for today, allow the art of a brilliant man named Schultz to help you grasp what my articles are really about.
This world is not getting better, I’m sorry to break it to you this way. This world is full of darkness and evil, and we hold onto the rhetoric of peace in the middle east, the solving of medical disease, the concept of freedom of the press, because these ideals are not easy to let go. The Word of God is very clear about what is coming in the near or distant future. Yet we cling, like Linus to his blanket, to almost anything that will bring us personal peace about who we are, and where we are headed.
It’s just easier for some people, to not be so serious all the time. Maybe that’s why I identify so strongly with Charlie Brown. He was always so serious, and naive all at the same time, that’s the story of my life.
Today, I’m hopeful for a bright and glorious future. Not because the world is getting better, or mankind is evolving to a higher plane, or because we’re on the verge of overcoming racism, violence, plague and pestilence. When I hear this stuff, I hear”blah blah, blah blah wa aw wa blah.” I’m hopeful today because I’m closer than I’ve ever been in my life to seeing Jesus. My hope is Jesus. Paul taught Titus there is no other.
Titus 2:11-14
For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.
As I was saying... 
I am well aware of your topic for I have a personal experience with my mother who was deaf in one ear for t10-12 years before she passed on at the age of 88. Family members and friends began slowly to realize her hearing impairment because she always asked everyone to repeat everything blaming surrounding noises (even in quiet environments). When my older brother who lives just one mile away from her, he with dad, finally made her aware of her new condition but she continued to blame it on something else. In fact she always positioned herself to side her better ear to whoever was talking to her. Later, others, including me, eventually told her the same but she continued to linger in denial.
Four years later, dad finally made her see an earologist (I made this name up) and went with her to make sure she did it. She [the doctor] surely diagnosed her to being deaf in one ear. The doctor fitted her with a hearing apparatus but mom constantly complained that the ear piece was very uncomfortable, despite the fact that dad upgraded her twice with the best contraptions of the time, even with the last one which was a minute suppository-like ear piece, she refused to wear it but dad always insisted that she at least wore it at social functions so she could be part of conversations.
You are right about the fact that the hearing impaired people, like my mother, at the beginning they are aware of their condition but they seem to think that it will eventually get better, like a cold. We the normal hearing people, are aware of the newly deaf person’s condition and we do shout our words as a normal reaction but the deaf person shouts back in frustration. Later, to pretend that they are not deaf, they begin to only smile and say yes to everything.
At this point in my life, I am more aware that I carry my mother’s genes and that I most probably become deaf later on. To support that prediction, on mom’s side of the family, two of her sisters were somewhat deaf before they passed and her still living brother (95 yo) is also 50% deaf equally in both ears and he, also, refuses to wear an ear piece.
Technology is rapidly advancing in that arena and perhaps when I get to that cross-road, they will have either an easy surgical procedure or better ear pieces.
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Thanks for the response. My family has been going through the same frustrations with our dad. I appreciate you taking the time to weigh in on a slightly less than fun topic.
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