Listen and Read: Who Is This I?

Copies of the CDs and chapbook for Words and Silences just arrived, and they are gorgeous. Sincere thanks to all of the people who have helped me with this project (especially ColorQuarry Letterpress and my wife Jen, a very patient editor).

The release date for Words and Silences is two weeks from today: Friday, October 7. You can pre-order the digital album, CDs, and chapbook here. Look for a video on October 7 of a solo performance at Merton's hermitage, recorded this summer.

NEW TRACK: "WHO IS THIS I?"

Listen to a new track from Words and Silences called "Who Is This I?" and then read an excerpt from an essay I wrote about it and other recordings from the album, called "Thinking Out Loud In a Hermitage."

In this track, monk and writer Thomas Merton first quotes the Sufi mystic Ibn al-‘Arabî, and how Arabî reconciles and unifies pairs of opposites—inward and outward, speaking and hearing—as two sides of the same thing. Merton then turns toward himself. We get a chance to hear him question his own existence, stating: "Who is this I? Who am I who sit here? It’s very difficult to say."

At 3:40, when Merton says "Who am I who sit here?" there is a pause and a waver in his voice. For me, it is the most emotional and unsettling part of all of the Merton hermitage tapes I have listened to (I reflected this subtle, quiet emotion in the music, too).

It reminds me how sound has the power to touch. It is a little embarrassing to admit: even though I have listened to this excerpt perhaps a hundred times or more, each time I am deeply affected by it.

In this moment, Merton betrays an uncertain self: one that is vulnerable, exposed, and full of contradictions. In the pause between words, that uncertainty is made audible, and reveals something to us that text alone cannot.