God's Noise-Cancelling Headphones

Anybody who knows me knows that I enjoy music - a lot. A big part of my daily routine is listing to my ipod on the way to and from work on the "L". Not long ago, I had only the regular ear-bud headphones. If you want to actually hear the music over the train noise with these, you have to turn it up to nearly deafening levels. I expect I may have some hearing loss in the years to come.

A couple years ago, I acquired a pair of Sennheiser PXC 250 Noise-Cancelling headphones. They're great. I love them. Contrary to what you might think, they do not drown out all the external sound but only the low level drone - like the train rolling on the tracks or the sound of a car engine. Stuff I consider to be, well, "noise".

I often like to where them when the music is off, when I'm praying, reading (or sleeping). While doing this on Monday it came to mind that the function of these headphones is a lot like the function of fasting. For me, fasting allows me to cancel-out a lot of the "noise" in my life so I can hear the good stuff with more clarity- the stuff that is always there but most of the time gets obscured by the distractions of every day life. The good stuff that is God's voice.