I bought my MINI Countryman from a dealership in Colorado, having never test-driven the vehicle. When it rolled off the car hauler, I noticed its loud exhaust note. Turns out, the previous owner had removed the factory exhaust system and mounted basically a straight pipe underneath. It’s been so loud, that I’ve apologized to my neighbor—a night-shift doctor at our local emergency room—and then to my whole subdivision via our community Facebook page.
Unable to get companies to ship me a factory exhaust, I finally found a used one on eBay. Last Thursday night, I tried to mount it at my buddy’s shop. After an hour of measuring, maneuvering, cutting, and clamping, Daniel and I realized that we needed a piece not available off the shelves. I would have to get a muffler shop to finish the job—at an appointment four days later. Daniel clamped the hanging pipe to a crossmember under my back seat to keep the exhaust steady in the meantime. That resulted in a transfer of the exhaust’s vibration to my passenger compartment.
In addition to hearing the noise, I now felt it.
Saturday morning, Daniel and I attended a socially-distanced circle of church leaders, discussing how the pandemic and its restrictions have impacted our respective spiritual communities. Afterward, we walked out to our vehicles, parked next to each other. Daniel asked me if my MINI was any louder with the shorter pipe. I fired up the motor and goosed the accelerator a couple times. It roared and popped and crackled. I told him how loud it seemed driving home from his garage.
“It doesn’t sound any louder out here,” he assured me through my passenger window. “It probably just seems louder to you because you feel the vibration.”
As I drove home, that line from Daniel reverberated in me as much as my exhaust did. “It doesn’t sound any louder out here. It probably just seems louder to you.”
In the next few weeks, I’ll hit the two-year anniversary of my first visit with my therapist. Over those twenty-four months, she’s regularly had to tell me that the regrets and dysfunction ringing in my ears aren’t as loud to people outside of my head. She’s let me know that the lies I’ve believed about myself rattle only in my rib cage.
Over the past five years, I’ve met in a circle with men who’ve provided a similar assessment. They’ve told me that the fears that shake my frame and the insecurities that ricochet around my heart aren’t noticeable to observers—even to those with whom I’ve unburdened my heart. Without knowing it, they’ve quoted Daniel just with different words: “We’re standing right here, and we don’t hear that.”
Over the past twenty years, I have been a jerk of a husband, at times a straight-up villain. As I’ve surrendered aspects of my heart and will to Jesus and processed past wounds with my therapist, Crystal has seen a change in me. Over the past few years, she’s uttered phrases that sound a whole lot like, “It’s not any louder out here.” Those sentences got copied into my journal, as I worked to accept them. She’s had to gently rebuke my assertions to the contrary. Her words have been different, but the message is the same: “It probably just seems louder to you.”
Working a third fewer hours than normal during COVID-19, I’ve spent probably ten hours in the woods every week. Talking to Jesus and listening to worship music has momentarily quieted my internal and external frenzy. Standing barefoot in creeks and running my fingers along gnarled tree bark, I’ve felt my heart rate slow. I’ve exhaled where nobody but Jesus could hear me, emptying my lungs on the shadow side of mountains. The frequency buzzing in my ears has wobbled to lower, slower waves. I won’t put words in God’s mouth, but I’ve heard a version of “It probably just seems louder to you.”
Yesterday, a dude with a thick mustache and thicker fingers finally mounted a muffler onto my MINI. The vibration was gone. I pulled out of the driveway this morning without Crystal even knowing I had left. I won’t have to worry about waking my neighbor with the RPMs my MINI requires to get up my steep driveway. I only hear my MINI’s growls now when the tachometer needle moves closer to the red side of the dial.
Someday, I’ll find a muffler for my heart—for the growls of the lion that lurks for our souls. In the meantime, I’ve got Scripture verses and music, nature walks and scenic drives, loved ones and a counselor, pastors and mentors. When my world vibrates until my vision is blurred, I invite myself to garages to work on the noise. When I feel like cymbals are crashing outside the NASCAR race in my head, I focus on the voices that remind me that my brokenness isn’t as loud as it sounds to me. They come from vocal cords I hear often, but I hear the words of Heaven.
“It’s not as loud as it seems to you.”
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Stock cover image purchased from iStockPhoto.com
