World-Wide Cyber-Sermons are short written discourses,
which can easily be translated into all languages
and distributed world-wide by e-mail and web pages.

    World-Wide Cyber-Sermons are timeless.
This means that they do not contain any references
to the specific time in which they were created.
One hundred years after they are written,
they should be just as relevant as the day they were created.

    World-Wide Cyber-Sermons are universal.
This means they transcend all human boundaries
of race, place, & culture.
World-Wide Cyber-Sermons address only issues
that all human beings can understand.

    Some examples of timeless and universal themes:

Death

    Every human being will die.
This fact might be one of the major sources
of the spiritual striving and speculations of the human race.
Even tho all human beings have been concerned about death,
no definitive understanding has yet been created.

Suffering

    All human beings suffer.
But some forms of suffering are not universal.
World-Wide Cyber-Sermons will address those forms of suffering
that are found everywhere on earth
and in all periods of human history.
No human body is immune to all diseases.
All human bodies grow old and decline toward death.
Almost all human beings are involved
in relationships with other persons,
which often gives rise to many forms of suffering.

Sex

    As diverse as we are among cultures and sub-cultures,
we humans are all sexual beings.
Sexual behavior has created us.
And almost all of us will be involved in sexual relationships
at some times in our lives.

Meaning

    The quest for meaning in life is universal to our species.
And every human culture provides many meanings.
Most of these are faulty or limited in some ways.
So several World-Wide Cyber-Sermons
could address the universal quest for meaning in life
without falling into any of the mistaken kinds of 'meaning'
already tried somewhere on earth.

    What to AVOID
in creating a World-Wide Cyber-Sermon

    Avoid all references to your own time and place.
In ordinary sermons, such references serve to anchor
your discourse in the concrete experience of your listeners or readers.
But they only add confusing elements
for your readers and listeners who live in different cultures
and who will be born 100 years after
you create your World-Wide Cyber-Sermon.

    For example, the political leaders of any particular time and place
will not be relevant to people in other times and places.

    Another example: The sports played in one time and place
will not be understood by other human beings
in different places and times.
Sporting metaphors are common in everyday speech
---and in ordinary sermons.
But they should be omitted from World-Wide Cyber-Sermons.

    The social and political problems of any NOW
will not be the same as the social and political problems
of readers in different places and times.
If you feel moved to address such issues,
consider what people using a completely different language
and living in a completely different culture
will make of your thoughts.
As an intellectual exerices,
see if you can think of any discourse
from a radically different time than your own
(perhaps more than 100 years old)
and from a radically different culture
(perhaps an Asian culture you have never visited
and whose language you do not know)
which is nevertheless still important to you.

    World-Wide Cyber-Sermons should be edited by others
who will watch out for any of the problems mentioned above.
But you will save such editors considerable time and effort
if you remove or transform such references
before submitting your proposed World-Wide Cyber-Sermon.

    Translators will also be able to give feedback
concerning problems created by the original form of your expression.
If you have used words or ideas
that are difficult to translate into another human language,
the translators might ask you to simplify and clarify what you wrote
so that your thoughts can be more easily translated into other languages.
If one translator has problems,
other translators will probably also experience difficulties.
It is unlikely that new human languages will ever emerge,
but if that were ever to happen in the future,
could your present discourse be translated into that new language?

    Keep your sentences short.

    The basic unit of all human thinking and discourse is the sentence.
Readers will read your work one sentence at a time.
If they do not understand the present sentence,
they will read it over again hoping to get the meaning.
And then they can go on to the next sentence.
Translators also will treat your expression one sentence at a time.

    Beautiful writing sometimes does create elaborate sentences.
But in World-Wide Cyber-Sermons, you are striving to communicate
with your readers everywhere and in all future times
rather than impress them with your oritorical powers.
After you have written your sentence as you originally thought it,
if it is more than one line,
see if it can be divided into two or more shorter sentences.
This will make it easier on readers who do not use your langauge
and who do not share much cultural background with you.

    Short sentences also fit better on a computer screen.
World-Wide Cyber-Sermons will primarily be shared with the world
by means of e-mail and web pages.
Therefore, please be considerate of people
who have small screens.
This sentence is one line on the screen.

Feedback on this draft is hereby solicited:
Please send any comments to James Park:
e-mail: PARKx032@TC.UMN.EDU