Wouldn't life be more wonderful if we all were victims of spontaneous dance? http://ad.vu/2per #fb

T-Mobile video advertisement filmed at 11am, Thursday, January 15, 2009 at Liverpool Street station in London, England. And if you’ve seen this already, get out there and dance!

Track List

1. Lulu - Shout
2. Yazz - The only way is up
3. Pussycat Dolls - Don't cha
4. Viennese Waltz
5. Kool & the Gang
6. Rainbow - Since you've been gone
7. Millie Small - My Boy Lollipop
8. Contours - Do you love me

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Wouldn=?ISO-8859-1?B?uQ==?=t life be more wonderful if we all were victims of spontaneous dance? http://ad.vu/2per #fb

T-Mobile video advertisement filmed at 11am, Thursday, January 15, 2009 at Liverpool Street station in London, England. And if you’ve seen this already, get out there and dance!

Track List

1. Lulu - Shout
2. Yazz - The only way is up
3. Pussycat Dolls - Don't cha
4. Viennese Waltz
5. Kool & the Gang
6. Rainbow - Since you've been gone
7. Millie Small - My Boy Lollipop
8. Contours - Do you love me

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lost in a moment | dennis wheatley video

via vimeo.com

Mesmerizing.

Text from original post:

one take impromptu film made in Tokyo by Dennis Wheatley and Stefan McClean.

We were sitting in this sushi bar pondering how best to set up a camera to film things all by itself whilst we were in Tokyo.
Take our hands out of the equation... let the camera have its own journey.

I'd taken a cannibalised record turntable with me from the UK with the idea of filming slow panoramas but it was painfully bumpy and stopped every minute.

Then we had our eureka moment and filmed this.

A few years later I was working on a piece of music and married the two together.
The music is all about that feeling when you're half asleep in the sun.. the ambiance of foreign voices becomes a lullaby to dream away.
There's something beautiful in not understanding a language.. it becomes abstract, musical.
Opera is so much better when you can't understand the words!

What we loved about watching this film back was the space that the camera was able to enter.. extremely personal and scrutinising but not too lingering.
dennis

The music is 'lost in a moment' by 'shrift' from the album of the same name.
myspace.com/shriftspace

more trivia: film was originally taken in 1998... married with the music much later.

Thanks for all the positive comments.. will upload a better quality version soon.

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Absolutely brilliant: Mike Rowe at TED RT @nancyduarte: I *heart* Mike Rowe: http://snipurl.com/ekkfv

via blog.duarte.com

Brilliant presentation by "Dirty Jobs" Mike Rowe. Make sure you listen to the very end and his diatribe on how American culture has "waged war on work" and lost the value, meaning and significance of good, hard work.

I may just have to start watching "Dirty Jobs" now. Gained tremendous respect for the mission behind the show, which up to now I have completely missed.

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Waterskidding. With my luck I'd get rug burns h/t @EnviroGraffiti #fb

via popsci.com

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A new favorite instant noodle: Long Kow's Crystal Noodle

I picked this up at Don Quijote in Honolulu [ http://www.donki.com/c/shop/shop_en.php?lang=en&shopid=1000] a couple weeks ago because it was on sale. I’m always a little skeptical about dried noodles to which you only add boiling water, but this is exceptional.

Different from the more commonly known instant ramen noodles, this is non-fried bean thread noodle. People in Hawaii would call it “long rice.” In my Cantonese culinary culture, we grew up calling it mai fun. It’s the same hard, dried, translucent threads thrown into sizzling hot oil that balloons up into the delicate, melt-in-your-mouth threads sometimes used in Chinese chicken salad or as a decorative bed underneath Chinese meat entrées. [You can read about the vast variety of Chinese noodles on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_noodles]

Preparing these noodles was a simple as opening the wrapper, placing the brick of soup base on top of the noodles, adding boiling water, then covering with the provided lid for 3 minutes. This particular flavor, sesame bean paste, came with an additional seasoning packet squeezed over the cooked noodles before serving. The bowl served up a hearty and delicious mini-meal that included freeze-dried bok choy that also plumped up quite nicely. Tiny bits of pork floated in the broth. Altogether, a very satisfying experience, one I’d highly recommend.

Note: I’ve also tried the vegetable egg flavor, equally good and for the non-spicy palate and good for nursing a cold. Waiting in my pantry to try: spicy tofu.

*Great for college students and for about $2 a bowl, easy on the pocket book. Available online.

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Stewardship Buzz | Lent Blog Post

Stewardship has long been a buzz word in the church.
 
We use the word stewardship to talk about how we appropriate our gifts, our resources – all that we have from our money in bank to the muscles in our back.
 
Wikipedia sums up the term and its history nicely:
 

Stewardship is personal responsibility for taking care of another person's property or financial affairs or in religious orders taking care of finances. Historically, stewardship was the responsibility given to household servants to bring food and drinks to a castle dining hall. The term was then expanded to indicate a household employee's responsibility for managing household or domestic affairs. Stewardship later became the responsibility for taking care of passengers' domestic needs on a ship, train and airplane, or managing the service provided to diners in a restaurant. The term continues to be used in these specific ways, but it is also used in a more general way to refer to a responsibility to take care of something one does not own. "Every person has a responsibility to look after the planet both for themselves and for the future generations. Acting irresponsibly could cause damage such as pollution, the destruction of cultural herritage, etc."  [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewardship]

The concept behind stewardship puts us basically in the role of manager and not proprietor.
 
For me, it’s honestly a psychological ploy or maybe even sly euphemism to get us to let go of what we’ve got. In other words, if we are stewards, we have the “privilege” of serving it up, opening the gates, regulating the flow, deciding the course with everything in an outward direction.
 
Jesus drove in points about stewardship in his teachings. In the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-28 he addresses how a wise steward ought to invest the master’s wealth with intent of increasing the principle. The man given five talents of money doubles his money, as does the man given two talents – and the master commends them for this. But the man with one talent buries it in the ground, and receives no appreciation on the money, nor any from his master.
 
Interestingly, quite the opposite in the Parable of the Shrewd Manager [Luke 16:1-15], Jesus offers up the story of a manager accused of poor stewardship but whom the master in the end commends for his management skills even though it yield a net financial loss. The short story is on the eve of potentially losing his job, the manager strips a debt of 800 gallons of olive oil oiled the master to 400. He reduces another man’s 1000 bushels of wheat owed to 800. Jesus’ makes his teaching point this:
 

The master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light. I tell you, use worldly wealth to gain friends for yourselves, so that when it is gone, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.

With these and other Biblical passages as backdrop, my language for talking about money has always used the “S” word – Stewardship. And the questions revolving around money and resource issues, challenges…okay, procurement, have prodded conversations about use and management philosophies.
 
However, I’ve got another problem.
I’ll say it blankly. My struggles with Stewardship—how much, to whom, when, how—are really not so much Stewardship issues but Ownership issues.
 
I’m struggle not because I am a Steward but because I deep down inside I believe I’m the Owner
Sure, I say all that I have is yours, Lord—but I say it with an attitude of it’s still mine and I’m giving it back to you. Maybe it was yours in the beginning, but I took ownership of it and, honestly, I kind of liked it, and now in good conscious because I know it’s the proper thing to do, I am giving it back to you. Some of it. The part I don’t need. The portion that makes me feel good when I generously give. But not all of it. Only what I can afford to give away, but I’m saving the rest for Me.
 
I am giving. I have control. I have will. I have choice. I have responsibility. I am making the decision. Someday if I’ve done a good job, I’ll be commended for it. I, I, I.
 
Why am I so possessive? Why do I want to exact so much control? I wonder if it’s a lack of trust. Or maybe I don’t understand my relationship with God as well as I thought. And maybe I don’t understand my need and my fears.
 
Maybe I need to just stop thinking of myself as owner.
What would happen if I signed away all my possessions to God? Everything, the small stuff as well as the big: My car, my clothes, the laundry detergent I use to wash my clothes. The hours in the day, my quiet time with God. My skills and education, my work experience. The food I eat, the parties I attend, the music I listen to. The Internet. The tea I bought in China last year, the pants that I say God bought for me. My diamond engagement ring, the old jade passed down to me from my grandmother. The roads and highways, the traffic signal, everything city, county, state, and federal. My creative work, my words, this writing.
 
And if not owner, what? A tenant, renter, user, borrower? A leech? Or how about a different view altogether
 
Am I afraid of poverty?
Tonight we had dinner with Rafonzel Fazon, a young woman, 21 years old who came from the poorest of the poor areas in the Philippines. She became a Compassion International sponsored child when she was five, supported, fed, educated, encouraged by a sponsor in the U.S. whom she has never met. She is now working towards her bachelor’s degree in communications and in a special program that pays for her college tuition while continuing to nurture her as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
 
She said that when she was little she used to be so hungry and would worry every day what she might get to eat. Every day she worried about a meal. But through the Compassion program that works to “release children from poverty in Jesus’ name,” she worries no more.
 
She says this: Poverty is the fear that you will not have enough. But because I know that Jesus is taking care of all my needs, I do not fear anymore.  That, she says is being released from poverty.
 
I need to reconsider my perspective.
Do I fear that I will not have enough? Do I fear that God will not have enough for me, so I stash some on the side?
 
In Jesus’ parables mentioned above, the first one talks about multiplication, it demonstrates an investment of resources that yields far way more than the principle: two- and five-fold. That’s a pretty high return. The second one speaks of divestment that wins friends and a place in eternity. In both parables, the stewards use their masters’ money, and in both, except for the servant who makes neither money nor friends, they are rewarded handsomely.
 
The point? It’s not mine to have, not mine to own and if I try to own things, they will own me. A purchase does not make it mine, only mine to use and pass on.
 
Jesus says in Mark 8:35-36: For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?

+     +     +     
LORD, help me to not make a claim on my own life. Help me to not look for ownership papers that make things “mine.” Help me to see your generosity and your genius and to trust in you. Remake me yet again in your Holy Spirit, and release me from the poverty of fear. In Jesus’ name.

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Dinner with Compassion at Kobe Steak House, Mar 7, 2009

Made some new life-time friends from Compassion International over dinner tonight in Brad and Nancy Schultz and “Raf” Rafunzel Fazon. Also at dinner tonight were Kirk and Vicky Leavy, Compassion Advocates on Oahu, and Suraj Upadhiah, a young man from Singapore currently studying law in New Zealand who at the age of 21 has already started a mission to work with the children of prostitutes in Calcutta, India. Dan and I had met Suraj this past summer in Singapore, and he came purposely at this time to Honolulu to meet Gary Haugen of International Justice Mission, whose work is dedicated to work through the justice system to free children and women stuck in illegal law practices and the sex trade.

Brad is a Compassions Advocates area director who gives direction to the committed volunteer corps for Compassion International [http://compassion.com] in five Western states including Hawaii. He went on a Compassion trip to Tanzania two years ago, and his life was never the same – leading him to leave his job in the computer industry a year ago to work full-time for Compassion.
Raf is a wonderful 21 year old college student from the Philippines who was raised in Compassion’s child advocacy program from the time she was five years old and is now in Compassion’s Leadership Development Program, which gives select Compassion youth the opportunity to attend college and participate in a leadership program. She is studying communications at a Philippine university on Mindanao, and she is here this week to share her testimony about Compassion at HIM’s Honolulu Conference next week (Mar 12-14 at the Hawaii Convention Center) as well as churches around the islands.

I cannot tell you how continually impressed I am with the quality of people at Compassion. They care about what they do: Release Children from Poverty in Jesus’ name.

I learned a most poignant and profound lesson tonight from Raf as we rode home in the car. She says that when Compassion released children from poverty it isn’t to release them from poverty into riches but into something more more safe: the knowledge and care of Jesus. And here is the most profound thing she said. She defines poverty as the fear of not having enough.

If that is the case, and I believe Raf speaks the truth, many of us are very poor indeed.

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Adding this to my wish list and making other's wishes come true #fb

It’s not only beautiful but I’ll know that 50% of the profit will go to providing clean water to 1.1 billion people who currently have none.  Clean water makes all the difference. Want to know why? Read this from Charity:Water’s website: http://www.charitywater.org/whywater/

$20 can give one person in a developing nation clean water for 20 years. You can fulfill my wishlist, or donate directly to Charity:Water. I’d be happy with either.

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My friend's new English Bulldog pup

Awww, I could just squeeze him!

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Waking, March 2, 2009

I really like this description of coming to a life with Jesus by N.T. Wright in his book Simply Christian [http://books.google.com/books?id=7fanGwAACAAJ&dq=NT+Wright&source=an&hl=en&ei=2_-sSZPPEpmMsQOs9sTOBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result]. He writes on pp 204-205:
 
What happens when you wake up in the morning?
 
            For some people, waking up is a rude and shocking experience. Off goes the alarm, and they jump in fright, dragged out of a deep sleep to face the cold, cruel light of day.
 
            For others, it’s a quiet, slow process. They can be half-asleep and half-awake, not even sure which is which, until gradually, eventually, without any shock or resentment, they are happy to know that another day has begun.
 
            Most of us know something of both, and a lot in between.
 
            Waking up offers one of the most basic pictures of what can happen when God take s a hand in someone’s life.
 
            There are classic, alarm-clock stories. Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, blinded by a sudden light, stunned an speechless, discovered that the God he had worshipped had revealed himself in the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth. John Wesley found his heart becoming strangely warm, and he never looked back. They and a few others are the famous ones, but there are millions more.
 
            And there are many stories, though they don’t hit the headlines in the same way, of the half-awake and half-asleep variety. Some people take months, years, maybe even decades, during which they aren’t sure whether they’re on the outside of Christian faith looking in, or on the inside looking around to see if it’s real.
 
            As with ordinary waking up, there are many people who are somewhere in between. But the point is that there’s such a thing as being asleep, and there’s such a thing as being awake. And it’s important to tell the difference, and to be sure you’re awake by the time you have to be up and ready for action, whatever that action may be.
 
 
           I love N.T. Wright’s recognition that everyone’s experience of having God abide in their lives is not prescriptive but full of variety. It’s also personal.
 
            I look at my life as a gradual, continual waking-up. When I first woke up to the desire of wanting Jesus to be a part of my life for the rest of my life 30 years ago, in one very real sense, everything suddenly became more real than ever.  I saw more, heard more, felt more. And not a day goes by that my senses are not sharpened even more and my mind awakened even more.
 
            At the same time, that experience was part of a process, a longer experience of being exposed and introduced to God as far back as I could remember. Never was God was an impossibility, a myth or lie.
 
            The thing, as N.T. Wright points out, is that when I woke up as college-age adult, I could tell the difference. I had crossed a line, switched into a new dimension of consciousness and reality within a world I thought I already knew.
 
            The current global economic crisis calls for similar: a wake up to a new reality. May it even be a spiritual one.
 
            
 
 

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