I have to admit that I am not very religious but the other day a friend of mine at the gym, Paul Schwartzmyer wrote a very spiritual piece. Paul is a member of the St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Eggertsville, NY. and columnist for The Rock, the parish newsletter. Thank you Paul, for such a wonderful article! With his permission, I am reproducing the article…

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My Thoughts

In Mark 7:31, a deaf man with a speech impediment is brought to Jesus, who took the man in private away from the crowd. He put His fingers in the man’s ears, spat and touched his tongue. Looking to Heaven, Jesus sighed and said “Ephpthatha” or be opened. Immediately the man was able to hear and speak plainly.

Typically in the Gospels, we know only that the man was deaf, and nothing else of his history, per or post miracle. Was he deaf from birth, or did he gradually loose his hearing over time? We know he had a speech impediment, and since there were no speech therapists to work with a child born deaf, we might empirically assume the man was born with hearing, loosing it at some point, retaining some language skills, which morphed over time. When he left Jesus, did he comprehend sound? Was he able to distinguish and interpret sound as we can, or did he hear a cacophony of noise, making no sense to him at all

What are sound, music and speech to a deaf man?

Think for a moment on the plight of the deaf man who regained his hearing. How was he able to cope? What would you do if you got back hearing and speech after many years?

Read, listen and think about the words of a present day man born deaf:

“”But the truth is, I really wonder what all of this singing (or whatever you call it) sounds like! Of course, I can put my hearing aid on but, it still won’t sound like the way you hear it. Sound to me is black & white, two-dimensional, on/off, emotionless, almost dull and boring. I can just about feel the beat and nothing else. No wonder the drums are my favorite instrument.””

Those are the words of a friend of mine, Sam Spritzer off his website/blog http://www.samspritzer.com/. I met Sam in my gym about 18 months ago. We have similar interests in running and we both enjoy spinning classes in the gym. Because he can read lips so well it wasn’t until the spring of 2006 that I realized Sam was deaf! I though he was quirky and had an issue with his speech.

Sam is undergoing a miracle. Ephpthatha! His ears are about to be opened. Recently he had surgery to install a cochlear implant in the area above one of his ears. That implant connects via a magnet to an external device capturing and possessing sounds, transmitting them to the implant which converts the digital information to electrical signals sending them down an implanted wire to his auditory nerve. The nerve carries the electrical impulses to his brain for processing. This complicated device bypasses the bone structures of the middle and inner ear, or the way God created to carry sound from the external ear to the brain. As I write today, my friend is waiting for the device to be activated. The implant is in place, he was feeling some dizziness, which has passed, and the stitches are out. Soon he will be connected to an external sound receptor to make it all happen. According to his website, it may be early February when this happens. A new device is to be released to the market then.

When the device is turned on, what will he expect? From his website:

“And more and more people are asking me all sorts of questions about the implant and what it will be like. The challenge, of course, will be how well I assimilate the implant and the mapping of it. At least, I am blessed with a lot of good people at work who will help me with distinguishing sound and of course, my wonderful family at home.”

When he first takes a spinner bike will Black Eyed Peas “Hey Mama” blow him away? Will he know the difference between Black Eyed Peas, Bon Jovi and Beethoven? What will happen when those deep bass vibrations that he can now only feel turn into sound? It will be an adventure, certainly for Sam, and for the rest of us as our ears and minds are opened to his miracle. Let us hope the sounds he finally hears become vibrant, colorful in three full dimensions, not dull or boring, as they are now, but alive.

With that, what more can I say? Hats off to you Sam, and like I said, the music in the spin class is really bad, when you can hear it, except when I teach the class. Then it really cooks. Amen

Paul Schwartzmyer
1/07