Here's a story about Indonesians tuning in to MP3 audio of the Koran. "iBook on your iPod" for Muslims.

Muslims are encouraged to learn to read and pronounce the Koran in its "original language" of Arabic. The Koran exists in translation in many other languages today, but only Arabic is recognized as the proper language for the holy book of Muslims, with the belief that the original copy of the Koran exists in heaven, in Arabic.

This is interesting in several ways.

1. It's another heads-up on how much the world is changing - that Indonesians will spend a month's salary on a portable audio player to listen to digital audio of the Arabic Koran and its Indonesian translation.
2. It's a reminder of some religions where memorization of the scriptures is emphasized or encouraged. I remember a little emphasis in churches I grew up in, but I see very little today in North American churches. I think scripture memory is highly valuable; but even more valuable is seeking to apply the truth God has communicated, making it central in one's life. Do-ers of the word, not just hear-ers, or memorizers.
3. It's a reminder that there is a difference between hearing and reading. Before Gutenberg's printing press, revealed word was spoken, not read by individuals. Listening to scriptures in audio as spoken voice, has a different dynamic than when it is read from print.
   
4. It's a reminder of the diverse ways that people of different religions perceive how God tailors communication with human creation. Let's briefly compare two faiths: Islam and Christianity.
   

On one hand is the Arabic Koran and the idea that it can't really be translated into the languages of the world (yet it's translated anyway). Personally (as someone who doesn't follow the Muslim faith) it's a difficult concept for me to accept, that human beings would constrain the almighty God to the use of human language (Arabic or otherwise) with its limitation of structure, vocabulary, grammar, and its flaws. There are many things that even we humans become aware of yet for which we find our human languages to be very insufficient. Imagine that the God who could create a billion universes (or even one) would be so finite as to only communicate within the constraints of human language, even in heaven.

On another hand is the Word Become Flesh, and the Christian belief that God continually reaches into our culture, history, time, place, and our "languages" to communicate the Word. Moreover, Christians believe that the Word was not a once-for-all communication, written in heaven and transcribed for earthly humans, but that God's Word is a living, ongoing expression by the creator in favor of relationship and reconciliation with all of creation. A hand and word extended into our world, conceptually and physically and spiritually. Love so desperate that it goes to the extreme of incarnation and vulnerability.

Well, this comparison could fill volumes, I didn't even scratch the surface, and to state the obvious, I can't speak for Muslims or their theology. 

It's perhaps easier to see a "coincidentally" ethno-centric religious influence in the beliefs of others than in one's own spiritual world view. So please chime in on this:

How might the Western Church be blind to our own tendencies to depict God by ethno-centric and culturally subjective terms? If some of these tendencies do exist, and if they are blind spots, how are we going to see them? To whom do we turn for help? How can the global church help each other to see God more clearly?

Lastly, speaking of digital scriptures, I use Bible Gateway all the time and find it so useful to be able to search the Bible for text, concepts, phrases, and make comparisons of many scriptures with similar themes. Switching translations is easy, to compare different nuances of how teams of human beings have tried to carefully translate God's Word (which was put on paper in many different human languages and cultures and historical contexts) into today's evolved languages and cultures.

I believe God, like creation, is dynamic, not static (really that God is outside the bounds of those two words), and that God cares about the translation of eternal truth into each generation and culture. 

On the six year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, many groups in the U.S. and some other parts of the world participated in observing "a moment of silence" to remember those whose lives were taken.

A moment of silence is much more than an opportunity to remember and appreciate those who were lost. It's an opportunity to listen to God.

God's voice to us is most audible when we're listening rather than talking.

Unfortunately, the extremely brief moments of silence were quickly drowned out by lots of talking througout this sixth anniversary about our post-9/11 world, an abundance of political commentary and critique. Much of it (the little I did hear) felt like noise. Where are those noise cancellation headphones?

But noise aside, in our own lives we can choose to continue to exercise frequent moments of silence (many times a day) to listen to God.

Frequent listening and tuning ourselves to God's tuning fork is what I think was meant by "pray without ceasing." Not a prescription for begging God to act out our bidding, but an attitude of constant realignment to God's bidding.

In a post-9/11 world this kind of prayer is needed now more than ever.

Sometimes I believe God's voice to us, when we're listening, would communicate an entry posture; a frame of mind; a servanthood mentality; a humble spirit; a sense of peace that passes understanding; not necessarily a position statement, series of left- and right-turns, or flowcharted action plan for which we might be looking.

God's voice never prompts us human beings, made in God's image, to hatred nor revenge nor violence. It does sometimes prompt anger -- not directed at people (each of whom God loves so much Jesus died for them), but directed at injustice and oppression - the righteous kind of anger.

So I'm trying to carve some more quiet moments into the day, and to listen.

From Job 12:16-25...

To him belong strength and victory;
both deceived and deceiver are his.

He leads counselors away stripped
and makes fools of judges.

He takes off the shackles put on by kings
and ties a loincloth around their waist.

He leads priests away stripped
and overthrows men long established.

He silences the lips of trusted advisers
and takes away the discernment of elders.

He pours contempt on nobles
and disarms the mighty.

He reveals the deep things of darkness
and brings deep shadows into the light.

He makes nations great, and destroys them;
he enlarges nations, and disperses them.

He deprives the leaders of the earth of their reason;
he sends them wandering through a trackless waste.

They grope in darkness with no light;
he makes them stagger like drunkards.