H is for HEADPHONES

Whether we call them headphones or earphones, they're all around us. Mostly attached to ipods or mp3 players, but still occasionally joined to a little portable radio, they have become an essential addition and fashion icon of the new century. It's not uncommon to see an ardent football fan at a game on a Saturday afternoon with a little length of wire dangling from his coat pocket and stretching all the way to his ears, as he checks on the progress of all the other teams playing. But you are probably more likely to witness on any day around town, several individuals in another world, as they walk about, oblivious to most things except the music they have chosen to get them through their day. And isn't that the key point of such players, being able to listen to your type of songs and not disturb those who are not in tune with your musical leanings. Indeed most professional sports stars now their music players to block out everything before a game and help them to focus on the mathc ahead. And while I love the freedom that headphones bring, sometimes I long to share an individual moment of musical ecstasy with another person and can't do that because we can't both hear at the same time. This summer, on holidays, I bought a connector that would allow me to share such moments with hers truly, only to discover that one set of earphones had broken and the magic moments were lost.

My first set of headphones arrived with our first proper hi fi system, but I never used them much initially. Then one day, shortly after starting university, I splashed out a small part of my grant on a neat little tape deck so that I could compile some of my favourite album tracks on cassette. The deck had no amplifier so the only option was to plug in the old headphones to the relevant socket. Unfortunately, there was no volume control either, so the volume listened at was generally the volume recorded, which on occasions was 'slightly' loud! This may be one of the reasons that my hearing is less good than it should be now but anyway, the trusty tape deck did the job for years and I disturbed nobody with my music. Often I would listen to music in this way after I had gone to bed and waken up the following morning to discover that the deck was still in the 'play' position even though the tape had long since finished. I'm sure that this had something to do with the fact that the music seemed to play slightly faster than intended after a while!

It became something of a habit after that, for when the tape deck eventually became redundant after years of gathering dust at the bedside, it was replaced with a radio / cassette player, then subsequently by a CD player, a mini disc player and, more recently an ipod, all with proper volume controls. For a while I experimented with a variety of headphones, some that fitted over the ear, some in the ear and some just cushioning the ear. Others had volume controls on the sides, some had little rotary knobs at the base and some still had none at all. The key to a good set of phones for listening to music in bed is that they don't feel uncomfortable after a longtime and don't 'dig in' to your ears. I think I've found the perfect set, so perfect in fact that when I bought them, I ended up buying two sets! But they're more difficult to find in the shops now since the advent of the little portable players where the earphones themselves are as much a fashion statement as the players they are attached to.

Headphones or Earphones are a great way to listen to music. Honestly! The spaciousness you feel inside your head as various instruments and voices explode at different points between your ears allows you to become more intimate with the music and even to hear those little nuances that are sometimes missed altogether when listening in the car or in a room at home. It's strange then that sound engineers never recommend 'mixing' a song on headphones in a recording studio as it is difficult to assess correctly levels of some instruments, especially those at the bass end of the sound spectrum. And most sound experts will tell you that the majority of music is intended for listening on loudspeakers. To put it simply, headphones are second best.

I don't want God's second best for my life. But if I choose to block out much of what He wants to say to me, I may find that I end up getting just that. And if I only listen in the way that I want to, I may never hear His voice when He calls. Worse still if I never listen at all, I miss out on everything including His salvation. I love the reply the man whom Jesus healed from blindness gave to the Pharisees when they questioned Him several times about who had cured him. He said 'I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again?' Even with headphones on I can still hear things going on around me. It's just that I don't listen. Are you a listener or just a hearer. Jesus said, 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear.' Are you listening?