Very Nearly a Whisper

The following are the liner notes for my new recording.  A sample of the music can be found here.

Ambient Music for Prayer and Meditation

“Praying is first and foremost listening to Jesus, who dwells in the very depths of your heart.  He doesn’t shout.  He doesn’t thrust himself upon you. His voice is an unassuming voice, very nearly a whisper, the voice of a gentle love… 

This listening must be active and very attentive listening, for in our restless and noisy world God’s so loving voice is easily drowned out. You need to set aside some time every day for this active listening to God if only for ten minutes...

You’ll find that it isn’t easy to be still for ten minutes at a time. You’ll discover straightaway that many other voices, voices that are very noisy and distracting, voices which do not come from God, demand your attention.  But if you stick to your daily prayer time, then slowly but surely you’ll come to hear the gentle voice of love and will long more and more to listen to it.”

Henri J.M. Nouwen

Show Me the Way: Readings for Each Day of Lent

This passage from the writings of Henri Nouwen led to the creation of this recording.  I envisioned this recording as a tool for prayer and meditation.  A prayer of active listening is unfamiliar to many, and because it is unfamiliar it is initially difficult.  This recording seeks to help those who would like to practice this type of prayer.

Listening requires silence, and that is difficult in a society that constantly bombards our senses with sounds and sights.  Silence can be uncomfortable for those not used to it. Silence can become a distraction in and of itself as the ear strains to hear what is going on in the world around us.  This recording of ambient music is intended to help deal with this uncomfortableness with silence, an aid to help maintain one’s focus on active listening for the gentle voice of God.

Ambient Music was pioneered by British musician and producer Brian Eno – starting in the mid 1970’s.  Ambient music is not music in the usual sense – the music does not rely on rhythm, melody or harmonic progression, or at least not as primary elements. Rather ambient music creates an atmosphere that surrounds the listener without drawing attention to itself, creating a mood through tone and texture more than anything else.  In this way ambient music is related to soundtrack scores which seek to enhance the visual scene while not being the primary focus.

Thus the music on this recording, while subtly shifting over time, does not use elements designed to hold the listener’s attention. At the same time this ambient music provides an anchor for the ear that is not used to complete and intentional silence.  What follows is a description of how this recording can be used to enable the type of praying that Henri Nouwen writes of.

Each track on this recording begins and ends with the sound of a bell.  Each track is a different length, allowing for the user to choose how long to engage in listening prayer.  The times noted below are from the sound of the first bell until the sound of the two bells at the end of the selection:

• Track 1 – Trinity - is 3 minutes long
• Track 2 – Sabbath - is 7 minutes long
• Track 3 – Dekalogos - is 10 minutes long
• Track 4 – Inner Circle - is 12 minutes long
• Track 5 – Wilderness - is 40 minutes long

I intentionally made the length of time for each of these tracks to be a holy number – such numbers show up repeatedly in scripture. The final selection, both in length and in title, reflects the 40 days in the wilderness that Jesus spent at the beginning of his ministry. It is that wilderness time that gave shape to the season of Lent.

Perhaps at first one can only manage 3 minutes of active listening prayer, but with persistence and practice the length of such prayer can be increased.  I do not anticipate anyone using the final track to engage in 40 minutes of listening prayer – but this track could be used as an open-ended time of prayer – allowing the listener to pray as short or as long as circumstances and attention permit.  Another suggestion for track 5 is using it as background music for devotional reading or Bible study.

When using this music for prayer or mediation do not set the volume too loud. It should hover in the background, loud enough to be present in your consciousness, but not so loud that you focus on it.  Think of it as the wallpaper in the room where you are having a visit with Jesus – it is there, it makes the room a comfortable place, but it is not like a painting that draws the eye to it and calls out to be looked at closely.

This project started due to my own desire to develop a better prayer life during the season of Lent.  It is my hope and prayer that you will find this recording helpful as you seek to listen to the gentle voice of God that is “very nearly a whisper”.

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This recording is available as a download the the Aurora Productions bandcamp page.  For folks interested in obtaining a physical CD - contact me directly.