! On His Deafness

'Speak up - no need to shout -I'm not THAT deaf! ' - do I have real reason to complain, if years of partial listening have brought now partial hearing in their fateful train? O Milton - isn't it curious: the blind evoke our instant feelings of compassion - while deafness calls some idiot state to mind, evoking, far from pity - irritation? Those saintly mystics would just praise their God that He, to speed their simple saintliness, brings outer deafness so that inner Word in cloistered silence, bring a greater bliss... So may I bear affliction in good part and hope to hear the louder in the heart.