Need to hear

'Did you know,' asked Dulu this morning, 'beavers can fell trees of up to six inches in diameter in half-an-hour?'  'No, I didn't but, wow, that's fast.' 'Yes, sometimes they'll cut it all the way around, sometimes in one side and then the other, but they stop every few minutes to listen for the creaks and groans as the tree is ready to fall.' 'That's important.' 'In fact, sometimes beavers are killed by crashing trees.'

I imagined a burly brown beaver propped up on its flat, scaly tail listening intently, perhaps cocking its head a little to the side to hear better. This is serious stuff. I have a tree to take down in the next few weeks and I'm respectful of the risks.

I'm reminded that we listen for what we need to hear, that our sensitivity to sound is based in part on how much we believe in and value the information we can get from it. Of course, we need the physical ability to discriminate inputs, and often teachers to point again and again at differences until they become obvious, but there's a sense in which what we hear is related to what we need to know.

The world is full, full of sounds, but most are irrelevant. The way I heard my eye movement and blinks during this recent seige of fevers was symptomatic, I suppose, but other things going on were more telling. The doctor picked up lung and heart sounds through his stethoscope but no news was good news.

The relevant sounds can relate to our social relationships, our quality of life, our very existence. The information is out there; we just have to sift it for patterns that matter, and there are an infinity of patterns, patterns of patterns, patterns about patterns. Each language is a dynamic complex of such patterns. No wonder my students struggle (often with substantial success) to master the pattern play of the English language. Learning their languages I would first have to go through a zone of (seeming) meaninglessness but links, sequences, significant simultaneities emerge.

We really are pattern producing and appreciating creatures, but this proclivity is not just for its own sake but for what is to be discovered. We are listening not just for what we already know but for indications that information is available in the welter of sound suggesting the presence of important things that we don't know yet. Recent discoveries about the cosmic microwave background represent marvels of listening, though the results were confirmed hypotheses.

Individual instances, for instance, are beyond hypothesis; someone yes, this one, no. Likewise, new emerging orders of complexity. The patterns that indicate presence of things like these must be at least in part beyond expectation. They'll be 'aah' moments. Henceforward, our world will have expanded.

One day, out of the ambient information, my search may pick up a pattern that speaks compellingly about an individual speaking. One day, I may address God-in-love as 'you' in a way other than and more than hitherto. The fundamental significance of friendship, hospitality and exploration I take as self-evident. The existence of God-in-love and the beloved Other is a premise. So far it has been for me a working model, but revelation can happen, and I'm longing for it.