I thought I was losing my hearing

but God...

Oct 11, 2024

Recording session with The JuJu Exchange last week, Shot by Daryl Wilkerson

What’s good everyone,

Two weeks ago, I had a very disorienting and humbling turn of events: I thought I was losing my hearing. From Wednesday through Friday I was hearing unprecedented levels of dissonance throughout the day, leading me to think I was suffering early onset hearing loss. Background music sounded off, my wife and daughter sounded robotic at times, the piano sounded all out of sorts around Middle C. At a gig the singers sounded so weird when they ran their riffs that I started to wonder if this was the end of hearing as I knew it.

As I woke up day after day with dissonance, I sat with all sorts of questions: Did I do something to deserve this punishment? Will I need to get hearing aids soon? Will I be able to play music professionally anymore? Will this happen to other musicians who do not take care of the ears nearly as well as I have? Why me? (But also, why not me?)

I turned to prayer, asking God to restore my hearing in both the physical sense and the spiritual sense. I sensed this wasn’t just about my ability to hear notes on the piano, but about listening for the divine instruction God had for me. After all, in Scripture, divine revelation often took the form of physical diminishment or precarity - e.g., Jonah in the whale for three days, or Paul being blinded on the road to Damascus. Both of these temporary hindrances were God’s revelation to these wayward men to listen to God differently and move accordingly. So perhaps this hearing loss was just a temporary impairment so that God could get my attention.

However, if this was permanent, like Jacob’s limp was after he wrestled with God, I prayed for God to lead me forward in my new normal. If I could no longer hear harmonies accurately, I prayed God would either show me how to limp along with what I had remaining or show me how to switch career paths.

I asked God to heal me, but wasn’t convinced that God would. It was not because I didn’t think God could, but because I didn’t think God owed me healing. Moreover, I didn’t want to be ableist in thinking that hearing is the de facto state God was supposed to keep me in. Perhaps there were new vistas awaiting me in my new state of hearing loss, as difficult as that might be to accept as a musician. (My friend Rachel Kolb, who is deaf, wrote an incredible guest post on deafness, music, and hearing with the body a few months ago. I was thinking about that piece and Rachel’s unique relationship to God during this period of hearing distortion.)

Curiously enough, this episode transpired concurrent with Marcellus Williams’ last breaths. Right before the state of Missouri unjustly executed him, he wrote: “All Praise Be To Allah In Every Situation!!!” What an extraordinary display of faith, using joy and praise to indict one’s lynchers. Marcellus was losing his life but certainly not his hearing. If I were to lose my physical hearing for some reason, I hoped to not lose sight of who God was.

Eventually, my hearing returned to normal and the doctors confirmed so. I give thanks. But I also know that part of what God was doing during that difficult stretch was helping me appreciate the way I can pray for the needs of my vocation. My wife Carmen, the worship pastor at my church, and my friend Nick all prayed for my hearing to be restored in part because of my call as a musician. Their petitions were not out of ableist thinking, but out of awareness of my work as a musician. Such intercession was as convicting as it was encouraging because it was modeling for me a different level of intentionality in my petitioning God.

Sometimes I struggle with praying about what I desire God to do because I fear failure. If God doesn’t come through in some way that I can tangibly see, then I’ll be let down. But as the cliche goes, when you don’t try, you can neither fail nor succeed. During those tender few days, God was teaching/reminding me that faith is not primarily an insurance policy but a treasure map.

Faith is not primarily an insurance policy but a treasure map.

At the risk of sounding dramatic, coming out of this hearing episode, I sense rebirth in my sound as a musician (as was experienced in my recording session with The JuJu Exchange last week). Mourning the prospect of never being able to play again, and running through all of those scenarios in my head I listed above, showed me how fragile this life is but also how precious. It’s time to fly.

I share this story with you as you think about loss that you have experienced and what it means for it to be restored, either in this life or in the life to come. I pray that you and those around you can pray big prayers for restoration. But I also pray that we’re able to pray humbly about holding on to what remains. Ashe and amen.

abundantly,

Julian

What’s Next

Oct 12-13 Notes of Rest at Lawndale Christian Health Center Retreat (Williams Bay, Wisconsin)

Oct 14 Zachary Finnegan at Chicago Magic Lounge

Oct 20 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at UMC Midwest Methodist Foundation (Downers Grove, IL)

Oct 26 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at St. Martin’s Episcopal (Chicago)

Nov 2 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Cafe Coda (Madison, WI)

Nov 8 Notes of Rest at Bethel University (St. Paul, MN)

Nov 9-10 Notes of Rest and Circle of Trust at Plymouth UCC (Des Moines, IA)

Nov 15-16 Julian Davis Reid & Circle of Trust at Andy’s (Chicago)

Nov 21 The JuJu Exchange at Jazz Institute of Chicago (Chicago)