The London Times ran an article on a visit to England by Neil Young. He has a new movie coming out titled the Freedom of Speech Tour with Crosby, Stills and Nash. Besides aspirations for his music that lies ahead he is developing a battery-operated car. He has taken a 1959 Lincoln and converted it into an electric car. His goal is to be rid of roadside gas stations and replace them with self-generating power sources. He thinks his car could actually put power back into the house plug rather than deplete it.

Neil Young has always humored me. He is one of those “going to change the world guys” from my generation. He plays like someone just dumped some ants down his pants. Kids like him and have for decades. He looks as heavy as I do now. He has produced a bit of a paunch and like me has accepted it as part of this era of his life.

He is selling his vintage guitar collection to fund the electric car project. I once sold 20 of my guitars, some of which were vintage, to finance a new ministry. It’s hard to let go of a vintage guitar. You do have to hand it to him that he is taking on the vision by himself and not just talking about it. He does drive a Hummer run on biofuel. So when he drives he is just driving up the price of food.

There aren’t enough characters like Neil around. The outrageous comes off normal with him. Imagine taking your neighbor’s Lincoln and tearing the engine out of it and loading it with batteries of all sorts. Detroit can’t do it but Neil can? It just may be a guy like Neil who’ll save us all.

My mother always said "Believe you can do anything and you may possibly see it happen." I am an optimist about our present crisis economically and politically. I can’t help it. I honestly think someone is finally going to get serious about another form of energy and travel finally. Things have a bit to go before things are as bad as they were in 1990. I remember 1990. I had just led a congregation in building a multi-million dollar facility and the economy dropped hard. Everyone acted like it was my fault. We had to do cuts to survive.

I also remember the dot.com hit in 1987; I had friends who lost 100’s of thousands of dollars in that drop. I remember the vacuous look on the congregation’s faces that Sunday. We made it without cuts that time. But my nerves were rattled.

I am pretty positive about where will end up this time. I think things are so complex now it’s hard to know if what the papers are saying will happen will in fact burst on the scene. Whatever comes eventually things will be better. Maybe we’ll be a lot less greedy for a while now. But then who knows.

I’m sticking with Neil. It’s not time to give up on your Lincoln. No, its time to take the engine out of the thing and plug it into your wall socket. I like that attitude. Go Neil!!!