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Good to hear you speak.  Made me feel that I was eavesdropping on someone's internal discussion with themself.  Hmmm.   Good way to get a better feel for what you intended, yet also made me feel somewhat intrusive on a private moment.
Thanks for sharing these private thoughts with us.  Letting down that internal barrier must be incredibly hard.  Yet so fruitful for people like me.  Can only say thank you.
Peace.

I've never used it myself, but were I to delve into the realm of audio and/or video podcasting, I have saved the link for the following site:

http://www.audioblog.com/

Hope it may help.

Best,
Simon

I *love* your reading style. The words are lovely, but to hear you speak it is incredible.

Thank you for sharing this.

There's a good, simple guide to streaming mp3s here.

Works here!

MacOS 10.3.9, Safari 1.0.3, iTunes 5.0.

I see you've already got it streaming-- that was me that contacted you before about how to do it. :) My email is jasonsilver'at'crookedbush.com, in case you need help with compression or anything else. I'm a recording engineer so I can likely be of assistance, and am glad to help.
Jason Silver
www.crookedbush.com
www.servicebuilder.net

OldPoet
Coming in on the mp3 at "5 by". (For those of you who were born after 1975, that is what we old timers used to say about radio connections, as in five by five or 5x5, meaning 5 on a scale of five.) Damn, I'm old.
Cynthia

Works here. OS X 10.4.2, Safari 2.0.1, Quicktime 7

Great essay. Although if I may offer my own humble criticism, I found the music playing in the background unnecessary, even a bit distracting. Just my experience.

Look forward to more essays (audio or typed). :)

RLP, its a nice audio file, but you do need to do the normalization part of the article. I know its not a big deal to most, but I am picky about volume levels, and your audio file is fairly soft.

And I'm not talking subjectively. I opened up the mp3 file in audacity and it scarecly gets above 10% of the volume range. Even with volume sliders turned up to the point where a rock and roll album is painful to hear, your sound will be very very quiet. Your voice should be comfortable to hear, should reach out to me and speak.

Here, I took a small clip of your mp3 and normalized it (using the normalize effect in audacity). Listen to this in winamp at 50% volume (about where the slider should be).

Another small issue... the ID3 tag's could be more descriptive: "Real Life Preacher - The Begining and the End of Wisdom" instead of "Gordon - test"

Why, yes, i AM anal retentive ;)

Streaming did not work for me; I could only hear a phrase at a time, broken by 30 seconds of rebuffering. However, since I am the last living person to use a dial-up connection, this shouldn't be a concern for your broader audience.

this should turn into a podcast any day now! -scott g

I waited till the end of my day to listen, and it is always a joy to hear you speak. I can't wait till christmas !! You bring life to the words on a page. Thanks. And now I lay me down to sleep...

The real advantage of audio over text is the ability to multitask. I. e., if I can listen to you, I can play solitaire at the same time.

The fact is, as most people know intuitively, oral transmission works best with narrative, with storytelling. Who are the people we like to hear tell a story? Jean Shepherd. Garrison Keillor. John Henry Faulk. I've read their stuff and I've listened to it. It always works better listening to it. Sometimes I can read it with delight only because I am so familiar with the voice that I sort of do an imitation in my mind as I read it.

Not every storyteller can do this. Listen to the essays on public radio, either national or local. Most of them are dead awful to sit through. They seem to be literate, but the speaker doesn't understand at all where to put the emphasis in his/her own prose. Most would be better off read as text. There are exceptions: the Minnesota (sohtuh)guy whose name I can't recall whose essays are always driveway moments. Here in South Bend there are five local people who deliver something called Michiana Chronicles, one each week Only one, sometimes two, actually work on the radio.

So it's narrative and delivery that count. This is what sorts out the world of would-be stand-up comics between the ones who make it and the ones who don't. Delivery can carry something like political oratory only so far, though--it works best only at special memorable moments, but not for hours on end. Notice that you can't deliver philosophy or theology orally, and history only rarely. Notice too that most sermons are meant to be read, not listened to.

RLP, you're on your way. Already a couple of your essays--often the more cerebral ones--are more compelling in audio than in text alone. Carry on, my friend.

chuck vh

Hi P,

I love your audio experiments. What I'd love even more is to have them collected with a link over in the Main box to "Audio" or something. I'm sending links to my sister who is legally blind and is always grateful to hear essays online in a non-synthesized voice, but being the lazy bum that I am, I'd rather give her an "audio archive" link and let her do the work of checking in periodically herself. ;-)

Keep up the great writing and the great reading.

~~Charles

Thank you for this RLP.  It is great to hear the audio, but rest assured, the message works either way.  Lauren

MP3 streamed perfectly for me Wednesday afternoon.  I agree with others' comments about the volume being a little low.  It also faded in and out a bit, as if you had turned your head away from the mike once in a while.
 
I also agree that the audio rendition was very well done.  I read along as you spoke, and was interested to hear how your spoken emphasis differed from my reading.  My only recommendation would be to slow down just a touch, as it seemed rushed here and there.
 
Thinking of you as Hurricane Rita heads for shore - they're saying on the news that there could be hurricane force winds as far inland as Dallas.  I hope you, your friends and family are all safe!
Karen from Pittsburgh

Hello Preacher,
I've heard your voice through the link to an earlier interview, but hearing you read your own essay is a special experience. Shalom

I liked hearing your Texas-seasoned voice, preacher. You speaking is a different "voice" than the one on the page -- I liked both, but they offer up something a little different. I heard a great thing about writing the other night. "Because we share language, writing is not something you do by yourself." It seems as if the spoken word would be more immediate, but when Iread your writing, it resonates more, perhaps because i feel like reading asks my imagination to be more engaged and i feel more connected.

Your essay is beautiful. Here's what i like to think about empiricism. I think back to what the most educated and most courageous among us would have thought to be factual about the workings of the world four centuries ago. A lot of it was wrong, much more was not-quite right. It makes sense to me to think that, as smart as we like to think we are, we are in for some surprises about the nature of reality.

What I do know is that I have passed through some dark nights with the words "God is trustworthy" on my lips and been delivered to the other, brighter side. A few times, my troubles were washed away through such intricately choreagraphed circumstances -- a kind of ballet of deliverance -- I've thought to myself, wow, God really likes to throw in a little something just for show sometimes.

It's taught me not to just settle for what I think I want, but wait for what God thinks is a good deal.

Hi Gordon,
Wow!! I am blown away by your soft voice and just love that accent. I don't 'hear' the accent when I read your stuff and occasionally stumble over words pronounced differently with an English accent. Now I will be able to 'hear' you speak the words.
Beautiful!