Festivities
We welcome in the New Year at the stroke of midnight, as if it is a personality, with shouts and the song Auld Lang Syne. Parties follow that are rarely quiet—people don’t sit around and play chess or contemplate the meaning of the universe. They drink and eat and get loud and louder—it is as hard to imagine a New Year’s party without noise as it is a march without music.
A baby is born, and we want to shout. Look at what we have brought into the world. Elizabeth celebrated with Mary just knowing about the impending birth of Jesus.
A warning
Of course, shouting can warn us as well: If we hear the cry “fire” we are more likely to pay attention than if we hear a vendor yell “get your hot dogs here.” So, when we hear shouting, we should want to know who is doing it. If it is a warning, we may best heed it, if it is a vendor and we don’t want a hot dog, we can pay no attention.
Our daughter, who with her husband lived and worked in Ecuador for four years, told us this story: She was walking on one side of a rural street (they lived at the edge of the jungle) and her four-year-old son was walking on ahead but on the other side of the street. She suddenly saw a snake ahead of him. “Evan,” she said loudly, “stop and come across to my side of the street.” Now what if Evan argued or decided that he liked his side of the street better? He would have been in danger. But he recognized something urgent in his mother’s voice and immediately obeyed. He avoided a potential problem and danger by knowing his mother’s voice, sensing her urgency, and having (somewhat) a history of obedience.
Aside from Satan, snakes don’t talk, but let’s imagine that the snake ahead of Evan could talk Spanish and it yelled, “Hey, Evan, I have something to show you. If you like it, you can have it.” And Evan, being curious, walks up to examine it and the snake bites him. OK, that is hard to imagine, but there was a snake who did talk, and he has fooled a lot of people with his bite.
Warnings are so important that we have instruments and devices to help get attention when the loud voice won’t work: A siren lets us know that a tornado may be coming; the police or fire truck siren warns us to get out of the way; the referee blows his whistle and shows he is in command of the game.
In mourning
Sometimes the yelling is a part of crying and death because people are in mourning. Perhaps the chief has just died (“the center post has broken”) and there is wailing. People may tear out their hair, cover their bodies with clay, even (in the olden days) lop off joints of their fingers. “I hear Rachel weeping for her children, and she will not be comforted.” Jesus is crying for Lazarus and Jerusalem. We yell at God and cry in our effort to make him hear us: heal our sickness, improve our monthly income, get us through this exam. We make deals, but perhaps more subtly and quietly. If you do this, I will do that…
The shouts and wails of the wounded pierce the air—we can’t ignore them. I still hear them in the middle of the night, and they haunt me. I don’t like the dirges, and I never will. People refusing to be comforted. pleading with God, with the spirits, with anyone, to release them from the heavy burden that pins them down.
In courting
Instead of whispering sweet nothings in their lover’s ear, the Kewa men sat in tandem pairs and sang through their noses. It was not quiet—observers and chaperons were talking, pigs might be squealing, but the singing went on. It culminated with the couple bumping foreheads and cobra-like, moving upward and away.
At sports events
We may go to a football or basketball game and there is noise all around us. But obviously not enough, so fans hold up signs or a giant screen implores them to “MAKE NOISE,” and the fans, like Pavlov’s dog, willingly respond.
[To be continued]
Karl Franklin
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