What Do You Hear?
What Do You Hear: 15 March 2025
Nine teenagers were just confirmed as members of the Church. In the Presbyterian Church, part of that process is offering a faith statement before the Session. The nine statements were beautiful, each in its own way, and showed a depth of seeking that jaded adults rarely ascribe to younger folks. Several mentioned that they feel close to God in nature. Me too.
That Sunday afternoon I sat outside with a lovely Sauvignon Blanc, listening to the birds and, yes, feeling close to God. I enjoyed observing the world waking up to an early Spring; and the bird chatter, even the strident Jays, was calming and pleasant. I wondered what they were saying. I wondered if it’s pleasant to us precisely because we don’t know what they’re saying.
The sounds land lightly in our ears and conjure Eden, but maybe they’re echoing the deep themes of all life: hunger, joy, love, sadness, possessiveness, desire, scarcity. Or….and..what if the bird babble we hear as pleasant toddler speak really is praise and prophesy?
What do we hear? What do we expect to hear? What do we hope to hear?
What if bird song and tree heft and daffodils emerging are not just the background humming soundtrack to human storylines? What if we could truly live as equal co-inhabitants? Wouldn’t that give us reverence not only for birds and trees and daffodils, but for the other humans singing the deep themes of all life?
I’m not saying anything new here. But it does strike me that the message is relevant in our deeply divided human world. When the Dalai Lama once was asked about mind/body dualism, he stated with a mischievous grin that the mind is part of the body. No dualism. Similarly, humans are not distinct from nature, we are nature.
Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc., and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons. --Douglas Adams
One way I try to appreciate this intriguing planet it is to peruse Atlas Obscura before I travel. It’s a compendium of rare, wacky, interesting places throughout the world compiled and described by regular folks like us.
Last Spring I was traveling for Furman in New Jersey and found myself with some time between towns and meetings. I checked AO for anything that might be of interest along my route and saw the Holmdel Horn Antenna. The Holmdel Horn!! Months earlier I’d read about the strange radio telescope and the two Bell Labs scientists who inadvertently discovered the beginning of the universe. There was also some dispute about real estate, but mostly I remembered the science angle and I pointed the car East. I couldn’t wait to see it!
When I arrived, the grubby Bell Labs building looked abandoned. The road continued past the building, past a gate and up to the Horn, which I couldn’t see. The whole hill was surrounded by a high security fence and beside the gate were some scary warning signs dissuading trespassers. The Horn was right up there…and I had come so far to see it…and hey, the gate was open….so…against my rule-following nature and with pounding heart, I slowly drove up Crawford Hill.
And there it was! In all its bizarre glory. There was another car and a truck, but I didn’t see anyone, so I got out to take a few pictures and read the information board. A couple of men emerged from a nearby structure that seemed to serve as an office and looked surprised to see me. I walked over to introduce myself as Julia, a nice, non-threatening, scientifically curious South Carolinian.
The older man took my proffered hand, and said, “I’m Bob. I knew I should have closed that gate.” But it was said with an eye twinkle and a half smile. I told him I’d read a New York Times article a while ago and when I saw I was going right past Holmdel today I had to stop. And wasn’t this an amazing place and story about the discovery? He agreed it was and told me that the real estate dispute discussed in the article had been resolved and that they’d managed to save the hill from development. They were up there today to plan for the official dedication, which was to happen on Saturday.
When I checked into my Airbnb late that afternoon, I searched up the article I’d read. It was even more fascinating now that I’d seen the Horn, and I commend the entire article to you, but here’s a small excerpt:
In 1964, two young astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, found themselves plagued by an omnidirectional hiss as they surveyed the night sky for their own research. The static was eventually identified as leftover heat from the Big Bang. Its existence provided compelling evidence that the universe had started with a tremendous explosion; ever since, astrophysicists have been studying this radiation for clues to how and why the Big Bang happened.
Forehead smack. Bob was, of course, Dr. Robert Wilson, now 89 years young, discoverer of cosmic microwave background radiation dating the age of the universe, senior scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
I introduced myself to a Nobel Laureate but what did I hear? I heard local old man tending the local treasure. But he IS the local treasure! Local to Holmdel Township, but also, local to our small cosmic dot in the vast universe that he helped us begin to understand.
Interestingly, he and Dr. Penzias weren’t trying to date the universe. They were trying to measure the brightness of galaxies by using microwaves to measure the heat. But what did they hear? What they heard was a constant, multidirectional hiss indicative of a heat level that screwed up their measurements. Eventually, with the help of some Princeton physicists, they realized that the hiss was the tiny amount of heat (3.5 Kelvin) left over from the Big Bang, which explained its omnidirectional constancy.
The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. --Neil deGrasse Tyson
Neither group heard what they expected. The universe began to make sense because they were willing to listen with new ears to what was really there. The birth of the universe.
On my way to the airport, I went back to Holmdel Township. I went for the dedication ceremony of Dr. Robert Woodrow Wilson Park. I didn’t get to shake hands again, there were far too many distinguished guests and well-wishers, but I left him a little bag with a note and a Furman cup. I hope he remembered his erstwhile fan. Here’s a nice article about the event.
Bob had to leave soon after the ceremony to catch a train because he was teaching a class that afternoon at Harvard. I wonder what his students heard.
There is a danger in listening only to what we understand, and danger in assuming we understand when in fact we don’t. But it’s hard to get beyond our own confirmation bias, and that’s assuming we’re willing even to acknowledge it.
The United States is in a great upheaval. The current administration is, in their own words, flooding the zone and intentionally making prolific sweeping changes across many areas in order to overwhelm, distract, and stymie opposition. The omnidirectional onslaught hasn’t stopped, and its intention is to double downn on cognitive overload. It’s working.
I don’t want to disconnect or bury my head in the sand, tempting though that is, but I do want to protect my mental health. So, I can’t start the day with the news. I’ve been starting with poetry.
I don’t know whether you’ve ever tried to write a poem, but it’s really hard. It’s hard to read and understand them sometimes, too. The reason for both is that poetry is, necessarily, distilled emotion and narrative, refined down to its linguistic essence. Poetry uses words to get beyond words. And in that beyond, if I can listen to what’s there instead of what I expect, or want, then sometimes I can hear a truth new to me.
In so far as poetry, or any of the arts, can be said to have an ulterior purpose, it is, by telling the truth, to disenchant, and disintoxicate. --W. H. Auden
May we listen for new truths, for everyone’s truth, not just the loud mouths who scream or rant. And not just the insidious ones who have disproportionate power and need not draw attention to their quiet, destructive actions. As the saying goes: do not obey in advance.
There are some of us who are very vulnerable and at risk right now. And there are others of us who can afford to speak some unpopular truth. Do not be afraid. Or, be afraid and speak it anyway.
God is calling each of us to action. What do you hear? And how will you make yourself heard?
