theothegrey

Photos from our “Vox Populi” show back in March, the voice of the people speaking up about poverty and the environment. Two of our team members were able to do a presentation on Floresta. We also had a fine lineup of talent. You can see the list and some videos at Vox Culture.

This past weekend was full of Vox Culture activities. First we had a show for Ayad Fadel and Dune-Micheli Patten. Ayad’s show “Blend” was a mixture of ancient Iraqi symbols and modern American influences. Dune featured new “Urban HIStories and Icons.”

On Sunday night, Dune got us a spot on KCOH with Natalie J. We were on the radio talking about Vox Culture, art, community benefit, and music. Natalie gave Matt’s album some air time. All in all it was a fun weekend. What a welcome home from the Covenant’s Midwinter Conference!

Click on the picture to see a few of my New York photos. I was in Manhattan last week for a conference called Q, thanks to the generosity of the L2 Foundation and friend DJ Chuang. It was a good time to connect with new friends and engage in conversations about shaping culture.

Fast Company featured this amazing article last month on Johnathan Goodwin, a mechanical genius who is revolutionizing the auto industry. Here’s an excerpt.

Two years ago, Goodwin got a rare chance to show off his tricks to some of the car industry’s most prominent engineers. He tells me the story: He was driving a converted H2 to the SEMA show, the nation’s biggest annual specialty automotive confab, and stopped en route at a Denver hotel. When he woke up in the morning, there were 20 people standing around his Hummer. Did I run over somebody? he wondered. As it turned out, they were engineers for GM, the Hummer’s manufacturer. They noticed that Goodwin’s H2 looked modified. “Does it have a diesel engine in it?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“No way,” they replied.

He opened the hood, “and they’re just all in and out and around the valves and checking it out,” he says. They asked to hear it run, sending a stab of fear through Goodwin. He’d filled it up with grease from a Chinese restaurant the day before and was worried that the cold morning might have solidified the fuel. But it started up on the first try and ran so quietly that at first they didn’t believe it was really on. “When you start a diesel engine up on vegetable oil,” Goodwin says, “you turn the key, and you hear nothing. Because of the lubricating power of the oil, it’s just so smooth. Whisper quiet. And they’re like, ‘Is it running? Yeah, you can hear the fan going.’”

One engineer turned and said, “GM said this wouldn’t work.”

“Well,” Goodwin replied, “here it is.”

Goodwin can double the horsepower AND double the fuel efficiency while simultaneously cutting emissions down by at least 80% and ridding the world of frying grease. Too good to be true? Check out the article here. This has to be the most fascinating thing I’ve read in awhile.

Thank you Mr. Goodwin!

In less than a week I’ll be concluding my ministry with Meta at West Houston Chinese Church (WHCC) and I’ll be embarking on an adventure to plant a new church. This upcoming Sunday WHCC will commission me and a launch team to begin a new work in Houston. For the WHCC elder team this will be the culmination of a year’s worth of dialogue and planning. Reaching this point has been an incredible Spirit-led experience.

I’ve been living with an image in my mind for several months. I’m on a boat and I decide to test the wind by hoisting a sail. As the sail goes up, a gust of wind fills the sail and moves me forward, faster and faster. Quickly, I’m moving at a speed I never anticipated. The wind has taken over and I’m not in control…but the sensation is a rush. I feel alive!

When I look back over the last twelve months I’m in awe at the new relationships I’ve developed, the people I’ve met, the change I’ve seen in people’s hearts, and the conversations that have altered my course. And to think, this is just the beginning of a new adventure.

Check it out here.

We took a 20 mile route. It was grueling, but I made it to the top. Training helped me for all the uphill parts. I felt pretty good at the top. But, I had real problems going downhill. My knees were killing me. I had 5 ibuprofen along the way. Some fellow hikers offered me more. Vitamin I is what they called it.

The most difficult part of the hike came before the cables, a section called the switchbacks. It was the most physically demanding. I stopped several times to catch my breath…and to pray. I rededicated myself to God several times before that section of the trail ended.

The scenery along the entire trail is breathtaking. There’s something humbling and de-centering (a word I use frequently at Meta) about Yosemite. It puts you in your place, in a good spiritual kind of way.

You can click on the photo to go to my flickr site. I’ll add more notes to flickr in the coming days.

In just a few days I’ll be hiking Half Dome in Yosemite with a group of close friends. There are five of us. Two run marathons. I’ve been training on the stairmaster for the last two months. One guy emailed the group two weeks ago. He thought it would be a good idea to start exercising.

I’m looking forward to the challenge!

The following quote caught my eye. It’s from Rich Stearns, president of World Vision.

Compared to her male counterpart, a girl growing up in the developing world is more likely to die before her fifth birthday and less likely to go to school. She is less likely to receive adequate food or health care, less likely to receive economic opportunities, more likely to be forced to marry before the age of 16, and more likely to be the victim of sexual and domestic abuse.

Girls are forced to stay home from school to work. In fact, two-thirds of the nearly 800 million illiterate people in the world are women. Only one in 10 women in Niger can read. Five hundred thousand women die every day from childbirth complications—that’s one woman every minute. Girl babies are even killed in countries where males are considered more valuable.

Women are denied property rights and inheritance in many countries. Worldwide, women own only 1 percent of the world’s property. They work two-thirds of all the world’s labor hours but earn just 10 percent of the world’s wages.

Being female, in much of our world, is not “heavenly.”

And yet, in my opinion, the single-most significant thing that can be done to “cure” extreme poverty is this: protect, educate, and nurture girls and women and provide them with equal rights and opportunities—educationally, economically, and socially. According to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan: “No tool for development is more effective than the empowerment of women.” This one thing can do more to address extreme poverty than food, shelter, health care, economic development, or increased
foreign assistance.

There is a saying in Ghana: “If you educate a man, you simply educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.” When a girl is educated, her income potential increases, maternal and infant mortality is reduced, her children are more likely to be immunized, the birth rate decreases, and HIV infection rates (especially in Africa) are lowered. She is more likely to acquire skills to improve her family’s economic stability, and she is more likely to ensure that her daughters also receive an education. Educating girls pays dividend after dividend to the whole community.

You can read the rest here.

February was an eventful month. I was in Orlando for Humana 2.0. Then, I visited Seattle for another conference. In between those trips, I was down and out with a five day fever and a nasty respiratory infection. Thanks to my good neighbor, Dr. James Toung, I was able to pump some antibiotics into my system and heal.

Lately, like everyone else it seems, I’ve been drifting into thoughts about the health of the environment. A few weeks ago I watched Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” I enjoyed it. I’m not a fan of Al Gore but his movie was good. I also enjoyed the latest issue of Fast Company and the article on Business 3.0 about entrepreneurial businesses tackling the world’s problems. It’s hopeful. If you read the article, be sure to click on the slideshow on “Next Best Buisness Ideas.” I especially like Idea 43. Apparently, someone in Holland has come up with the brilliant idea of embedding water pipes in the countriy’s asphalt roads. According to the Fast Company editor, if these pipes are placed in 15% of Holland’s roads it would produce more energy than the nation’s utilities!

As someone born and raised in California, environmental messages fit easily into my view of the world and my beliefs about what needs changing. I lived through water shortages and for a time I learned to take three minutes showers — 1 minute rinse, 1 minute turn off water and soap, 1 minute rinse. I was taught to “give a hoot, don’t pollute” and I still find myself deeply annoyed if trash isn’t in the right place. Last week my trash can tipped over and junk spilled out into the street and on to neighboring lawns. I was compelled to pick up every last piece of litter and stick it back in my can. And, speaking of cans, I also recycle. Recycling was something my parents were really good about.

What strikes me, is that in this area of my thinking I’ve been shaped more by my Californian childhood and less from my being a follower of Jesus. My beliefs and practices are more informed by Woodsy Owl than Scripture.

Last week, I started teaching a class on the Book of Genesis. I think it’s very clear from the the first pages of Scripture that we human beings were meant to be environmentalists. God put human beings in the garden to take care of it (Gen. 2:15). I think this is part of the message we were meant to get in Genesis. To be human as God intended is to be an environmental caretaker. Scripture is certainly not silent on the issue. It’s just that most modern evangelicals have been more concerned with asking questions about darwinism and evolution when they read Genesis. But this is changing. I’m sure we’ll start hearing messages about being an ecofriendly Christian in the near future.

I’ve got a lot to learn and change in this area of my life. Even with my California upbringing, I fall pretty short. If anyone in our family is an environmentalist it would be Amy. She still keeps the three minute shower habit to conserve water. But I’m learning…

Your thoughts?