relationships and community on Deafness

Hear the good news – God is not silent, nor is God deaf. The one who watches over you does not sleep or slumber. God hears your prayers, even in those moments when you don’t know what to pray. And God...

Leader: The word of the Lord to the prophet Isaiah says: You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with the...

Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk th...

The Celebrant and People together, all kneeling Most holy and merciful Father: We confess to you and to one another, and to the whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth, that we have sinne...

The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.

In India, there are street ear cleaners. Standing in line at the theater, you might be approached by such a peddler promising to give your ears a good cleaning.

Be not only attentive in hearing, but retentive after hearing.

What you do speaks so loud, that I cannot hear what you say.

One of our main problems is that in this chatty society, silence has become a very fearful thing. For most people, silence creates itchiness and nervousness.

Being heard is so close to being loved, that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.

We may remark in passing that to be blind and beloved may, in this world where nothing is perfect, be among the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness. The supreme happiness in life is the assura...

It would seem that hearing is but a narrow channel pouring into the deep sea of doing. Yet the etymological dictionary taught me that the sharp distinction between hearing and doing is the result of h...

A student who had recently lost his sight was sent to the Seeing Eye Institute for the Blind in Morristown, New Jersey, for specialized training. Upon arrival, he was greeted by another young ma...

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid.

If your voice is heard by more people because you've earned some kind of name and fame, your silence on an issue of urgent moral importance is even more of a betrayal. Privilege is obligation.

Because God is the living God, He can hear; because He is a loving God, He will hear; because He is our covenant God, He has bound Himself to hear.

Light griefs can speak; great ones are dumb.

The drug problems in the U.S. demonstrate this pattern: by heightening powers of perception, chemical stimulants open up a new world to a generation that has never learned to appreciate fully the worl...

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

The greatest dis-ease facing humanity right now is our profound and painful sense of disconnection.

[The poor have] a feeling of powerlessness and an inability to make themselves heard.

That peoples can no longer carry on authentic dialogue with one another is not only the most acute symptom of the pathology of our time, it is also that which most urgently makes a demand of us.

He has occasional flashes of silence that make his conversation perfectly delightful.

The living human community that language creates involves living human bodies. We need to talk together, speaker and hearer here, now. We know that. We feel it. We feel the absence of it. Speech conne...

The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss – an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wi...

I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilized music in the world.

The greatest problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.

My friend Joi told me that when she was growing up, her parents invented a ploy to keep her from talking all of the time. They told her that people are allowed only so many words in one lifetime, and ...

Heavenly Father, we come before you as beggars in need of your voice. As we lift up our thoughts, songs, and prayers, we lean in to hear how you would speak back to us. We yearn to hear the voice of J...

The trouble with so many people is that the voice of their neighbors sounds louder in their ears than the voice of God.