Should the Dirty Trucker look have left?

So, I got a hair cut today. Good decision or bad decision?

Flashback to College

Most of you who knew me in college know that one of my strengths was not time management. I was known for the all-nighter to do the paper the night before. There was just too many people to spend time with until the paper was due. SOme of you (Bryce and Kush and Fudge) remember the pain of writing these papers and the amount of coffee that I consumed that would kill a normal human being, however it has become a part of my blood.

As I went to grad school, I have been deteremined to break the cycle (not the coffee drinking) of all-nighters, and I pretty much did it until last night. I made a mistake reading my syllabus and got the due date for a term paper wrong. Basically, I had to write the full term paper yesterday as well as take care of my families and fulfill some other things in the afternoon. THis means, I brought back the all-nighter. Just finished the paper, and it's time to turn it in.

I can't wait to be done with school!

G-diapers

A simple thing we started doing to our life style to care for the environment is switching to G-diapers. Diapers take over 500 years to decompose, and this is our little part to make a difference. I have been struck at how indifferent I have been toward the environment for most of my life, I never saw this as a central part of my life following Jesus, but now I think it is really important. Part of it comes from my understanding of discipleship- before I think I would have seen these kinds of things as an attempt to earn God's approval or love. Now i see that as missing the point. God's given me His approval and His love so that I will be a agent of change in this world, to reflect His deepest desires for the world through my character. God changing our lives to reflect His desires through the Spirit of Jesus is the sign to the world that God is alive. I'll always be seeking to grow, change, and improve in many different areas of my life as I continually to learn new things about the world and myself. This is a bit more exciting than just waiting for Jesus to come back. I have noticed that a simple shift in theology has made such a difference in little decisions.

If you are interested in learning more about G-diapers: www.gdiapers.com
It's a little annoying at times, when I swish the stuff around in the toilet and it gets all over my jeans, but it's worth it. (i get over my jeans because I am a bafoon, not because this is inherent in g-diaper disposal)

Conversations of the Kingdom

As we drove back from a long detour I made unitentionally (some call this getting lost, I called it an opportunity for conversation), me and Danielle started talking about the Kingdom of God--is the Kingdom within? do we bring the Kingdom? do we get a ticket to the Kingdom? do we wait for the Kingdom? or do we participate within the Kingdom?----yes, these are the kinds of conversations that we often have and that bounce around in seminary students heads---I think how we think about this is very significant for our lives, but I'll my opinion for later-

Later that afternoon after picking up a mattress for Hannah's new toddler bed at Ikea, I also had an interesting conversation about the Kingdom with my sister. She was talking about a potential idea for her PHD project. This idea came out a conversation with a Jewish professor that tries to connect churches to serving the community, and often gets frustrated because churches say their mission is to "worship" God and are too busy to be involved in the community. To which, my sister responded beautifully- what if we could help churches see the connection between worshipping God and serving the community in an intentonal way. To which, her new friend said, 'only if i get to be on your PHD committe.'

Did I mention I love my sister, Dr. Rowe? What a great response.

One article I read earlier this year said that most city managers hate it when new churches start because they are blackholes of money from the community. They take money from people that would be spent on other things, and the community doesn't benefit from it at all---

Why do you think so many churches see worship as detached from the life of the community around them?

How do you understand worship?

Do you see any connection between these two conversations?

The Paxton Girls This Week

Hannah and friend Aidia at kids' space




one cool looking toddler
snuggling in the lazy boy

Call to Prayer all over the world

Prayers are going out all over the world. This is an image from our campus website here in California. We all received an email from our president asking us to pray for families in Virginia. I am praying for the school, the families, and the family of Seung-Hui Chohe. In a shame based culture like Korean culture, I can't imagine the pain they are going through.

Could no one see that video of Hannah?

still working it out, i guess i'm not really that dangerous yet; it does work on both of our computers

Tragedy too Close too Home

Wow, this has been wild. I never expected to see a tragedy like this so close to my home town, and so close to my family. A friend of ours here at Fuller knows someone who was killed in the shooting, and my own family was close by. The shockwaves of this event are being felt around the world. It is the leading news here in LA, and in most places. My heart has felt very sad the last couple days as well as scared until I found out my friends and family were okay. I was struck at how tragedy is what seemingly unites humanity as I saw the faces of the people killed on the TV. All from such different backgrounds, all with such different passions and stories, met together in the same tragic fate. We really don't know how we will go, I pray we will live fully today and truly value the people around us. I feel so bad for the families and this also makes me very angry this happened..

Take Action on One Campaign, just takes two clicks

If you don't know about the one campaign, it is a grassroots effort initiated by Bono, to get governments in the Western world to give 1% of budget to end extreme poverty in the developing world.

Extreme poverty is poverty in which people actually don't have enough to continue to live and breath. Currently, 2 billion (1/3) of world population live on less than 2 dollars a day (near extreme poverty), and 1 billion live in extreme poverty. (1/6)

See my friend, Shannon Smith's blog, click on my internet friends on the right, Shannon Smith, then look for the link to urge your senator to push this initiative in Congress. Actually, the US has already agreed to it, and we just get to hold our government to the commitments they have already made.

It only takes about 2 minutes.

If interested in learning more: watch passionate speech from Bono at NAACP awards

Couple Highlights and Lowlights from last week

I lost the championship to my own basketball league, and even worse the one mostly seminary team in the league beat us. Thanks Jon Richards, you bum.

One highlight from this week was reconnecting with my friend Bruno. Bruno and I have gotten to be pretty tight since moving out to California. I originally met him when we came to visit Mosaic while living in Virgnia. We got to be pretty tight and then haven't seen each other for a few months, so it was great spending time with him. You may recognize him if you watch Coach Carter and look for the big guy bouncing a ball off a guys leg out of bounds, or else you saw him on an NCAA commercial this year during the tourney, and you will see him in a new Will Ferrell movie coming out next year, which will be hilarious.
This is him in character for the movie.

Another lowlight, well bone-head lowlight of the week. We walked a mile or so from our apartment to Target, the store of all stores, to buy rootbear float stuff among other things for a big community event we were hosting on Friday. Then, when we got to the register, I realized I forgot my wallet. Pretty smooth, huh?

Another highlight- Hannah wanted to hold Shiloah tonight. That was pretty sweet watching my little girl love my littler girl.