It was hearing the unique sound of a shovel scrapping
against cement as a neighbour pushed ice off the sidewalk into the gutter,
where the chunks of ice splashed into the running melt water, I found myself surprised
by sound and stood still, listening, remembering other sounds.
I will admit most of my life not giving much thought to sound[s]
per se.
Like breathing, seeing, most tactile realities of being
alive, never much thought given unless something goes wrong: headaches perhaps
make us brain aware; earaches, sore throat, running and being ‘out of breath’ –
an odd expression as we are still, obviously, breathing! – how many gifts taken
for granted!
Now that I am in my seventies and eye sight requires
powerful glasses, hard running days are over, I am becoming more aware of the
various gifts which both enable the physical person to function: to communicate,
see, move around, reflect, imagine, and remember.
Likewise I am more likely these days to say to God:
thank-You for breath of life, gift of a new day, the ability to walk, touch,
hear, see, and remember.
Air raid sirens: common in my childhood, even after the war,
well into the early sixties they would be tested every week. In the fifties
they would be tested during school hours and the nuns would make sure we were
all huddled under our desks. I thought the nuns very brave as we were supposed
to be practising in case it was an actual nuclear attack and yet they simply
walked among the rows of desks praying their rosaries – I figured if we got hit
they would be goners!
Cracking of house in winter: Being poor there was not much
heat where we lived and the wooden tenements would crack, and I mean extremely
loud cracking which at night would wake you with a fright!
Gregorian chant: In my childhood long before Vatican II Sunday
meant High Mass and Gregorian chant, the organ played at full blast, the unique
sound of thurible hitting the extended chain as the priest incensed the altar,
the bells rung at the Sanctus and various points during the Consecration and
before Holy Communion – and too in those days the bells in the church tower
would ring for the Angelus and I remember them tolling when Pope Pius died.
The slap of stick against puck and skates cutting through
the ice playing hockey as a boy in the winter, on the streets in the summer and
the oft heard cry: Car! – meaning a break in the game until some vehicle had passed
by.
The haunting drum beat heard by millions around the world
during the funeral of President Kennedy; the first voices heard when astronauts
circled the moon and the “Small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind.”
Laughter, crying, first words of a child, first time hearing
their variations on Papa or Mama or Granddad/Grandma; the sound, so often heard
by doctors, nurses, priests, family members, of last breaths; singing birds,
great symphonies, rush hour traffic, ‘breaking news’ – which is delivered which
such intensity, often not actually about something serious like 9/11, but
breathlessly delivered even about snowstorms!
That haunting grief filled yet love filled, repeated over
and over: “Santo Subito” from the crowd in St. Peter’s Square as then Pope, now
St. John Paul II, was laid to rest.
In the fall the honking of geese foretells winter is nigh,
in spring summer is soon!
I remember standing at the edge of the tunnel under Niagara
Falls, the pounding water seeming more a solid than a liquid.
Perhaps no two sounds reach deeper into the human heart than
a plaintive: “Help me.” – or the uniqueness of gratitude becoming sound: “Thank-you.”
Is there sound within the Holy Trinity as love is
infinite-infinitely communed?
Or is that always has been, is, always will be love so pure,
so absolute it transcends sound and is such brilliant light it is pure silence?
God Incarnate, Jesus, spoke and the sound of His voice, the
gift of His words, can be heard every time we open and ponder the Holy Gospel.
Yes, I am most grateful there are sounds to be heard, to be
remembered, yet to reach my ears.
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