Scott Wegener on things that go more than bump in the night.
Signs of the Times, Jul 2013
The sound of an espresso machine frothing milk, “Pssshhhhhhgshgshgshgshgsh”, and a two-stroke lawn mower idling, “putt-putt-putt-putt-putt”, are intermingled with the deep airy sound of a T-rex trying to blow out candles that never extinguish, “kerrrrrrrrrr – khoooooooo”. This best describes the concoction of sounds in the small echoy dormitory room I was trying to sleep in.
To his credit, my room mate had warned me he snored before I accepted the offer to stay in his room. “She’ll be right” I repeated after a second warning.
However I must say he specifically warned me about “snoring”, not the sounds of an asthmatic dinosaur making a cappuccino on an idling lawnmower!
I can only imagine how much his wife holds onto the hope of no more sleep in heaven.
What is it with night noises that makes them more annoying than during the day?
From a baby crying to a neighbors all night party, to a dog barking at possums frolicking on the roof, nightly noises irritate me somewhat.
Once, while camping, I demonstrate my party trick of being able to ‘call in’ an owl by whistling through my hands.
Everyone was impressed until it became apparent the adorable owl was going to spend the rest of the night shouting “Boo-Book!” above our tents. Wasn’t I popular in the morning!
As far as places I’ve lived in, there’s one house that had more annoying nightly noises than a 24hr karaoke bar.
Counting down:
Number Five: Living directly next to an intersection not only provided constant noise, but an obscure traffic light sequence brought frequent “It’s green!” honks from cars communicating to the car that had not seen the lights change. This, just meters from our bedroom window.
Number Four: When traffic did eventually settle down, you could hear the “pip . . . .pip . . . pip” of the pedestrian buttons – ALL NIGHT!
Number Three: We had a large walnut tree over the garage sharing a wall with our bedroom. It seemed that on warm still nights, the walnut stones would leap out of their husks and land with a startling BAANNGG!! on the tin roof, like a gun shot.
Number Two: During the day, living 600m from a hospital with an ambulance depot was ok because you could hear them approaching from a distance with their sirens on. During the middle of the night, however, they didn’t need to run their sirens . . . well . . . not until they entered our intersection anyway. It was only by the time they had snuck up, right next to our window, did they let out an abrupt “WHOOOOOP!”
Number One. There was an oval diagonally opposite our house that the hospital used for landing helicopters and transferring patients. You could hear an evening chopper from quite a distance, starting soft and then building up in volume. As luck would have it our house was directly below the approach path. This meant the finale of the pass over included windows shaking, light fitting rattling, and a slapping “whocka-whocka-whocka” so loud you’d miss the phone ringing beside the bed.
Thankfully the evenings with dino man, the caffeinated owl and the house of nightly noises all had one redeeming feature: joy came in morning.
This is an expression that comes from the Bible: “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning. “NLT Psalm 30:3b
If we expand our view from a single evening to our entire life on earth, we could apply the same sentiment of this Bible text.
Life on earth is horrendous. There is still some beauty and joyful moments, yes, but if you stop to consider all the sickness, evil and injustice in the world, we could well weep every day of our life.
BUT, joy comes in the morning.
The ‘morning’ is the return of Jesus.
1 Corinthians 15 says we will all be made imperishable (the living and the raised dead) when Jesus returns and we’ll be going to a place with a mansion to live in, as mentioned in John 14:2. (I assume angels will fly over silently in heaven??)
And the ‘morning’ analogy is complete if we also consider the Bible’s explanation of death being like a sleep in 1 Thessalonians 4:13:16 and John 11:11.
Those evenings I mentioned were tough, but joy came in the morning. Life is tough, but joy will come in the morning for those who put their faith in Jesus.