Lord Harmattan REVEALED

Lord Harmattan

Hi guys, I would like to introduce you to LORD HARMATTAN, as well as explain the new “CAPA” system that I will be deploying in the “Bra Ghana” comic strip.

The CAPA system is simple, everyone in the Bra Ghana universe is born with some amount of capa, and usually it is not enough for them to have any abilities. In rare cases people are born with enough capa for them to acquire an ability (or series of abilities) based on assimilation of the environmental factors when they are born. Now raw capa is basically weak, but just like the body, the more the abilities are used the more potent they become.

In the case of Lord Harmattan he was born in the height of the harmattan season to a street hawker. His capa is freakishly high and absorbed the environmental factor of “dust” at birth. His abilities include but are not limited to transforming his entire body into dust and draining moisture from objects. You will find out more about him in the series. 

He started off as a petty criminal, his dust abilities allowing him to evade detection and escape pursuit. As he grew older he embraced the need for education and basically self-taught himself to PhD level. He is very intelligent and meticulous in planning but has the appearance of a madman and often walks the streets wearing very little and scratching his bushy hair.

Pursuing your Vision 2: From Dreams to the Drawing Board

In my last post I talked about having your own personal vision. And we mentioned dividing it into two, the vision of “being” and the vision of “doing”. If you had any difficulty in putting down your vision as I had the first time I tried it, look at it from this angle. If you died (not that I want that to happen any time soon) what would you want people to say about how you were, or your character. Essentially that would encompass your “being” vision. The “doing” part is easy, what do you want to accomplish.

Now we want to take it a step further. You can equate your vision to a dream, now we need to get it closer to a reality, and that is by setting long term objectives. Long term objectives are quite similar to your vision but much more specific. Let your long term objectives be grand but achievable.

The achievability of any objective lies mainly on how one plans towards it. So if you want to be earning over GHS 1,200,000 a year (GHS 100,000 a month) by the time you are 50 years old, know that it is unlikely that you can achieve that by working for someone else, ergo you need to have your own business (and a very successful one at that). That’s just an example. So set your objectives to align themselves to your vision, and make sure they are quantifiable.

Remember to be S.M.A.R.T (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound) when setting objectives, and make sure that there is a plan associated with each objective outlining how it will be achieved.

The next post will focus on how to take your long term objectives and break them down into “epochal objectives” or objectives that are designed for each stage of your life.

Pursuing your Vision

As youth in this generation we have big dreams, well at least I do. I mean the basics are all there, some want fame, success, money, cars, glamour, this list is endless. But are we really working towards our dreams or are they just something our subconscious mind dwells on in-between snoring and drooling?

I’m no guru or anything yet, but I have learned some basic principles that seem to be helping me when I finally got round to implementing them. First of all we all have to have a vision. And a vision is a mental picture of our preferred future state. But that’s not all, an old man i know told me to separate my vision into two parts. The vision of “being” (the personal characteristics I want to embody in the future) and the vision of “doing” (the actual accomplishments I want to achieve). Having these two visions clearly formulated in your mind (or even better still, written down) would help you to align the things you do today to attain the goals you have set for yourself.

So take the time to really consider what you vision is. And as a Christian we can’t forget that God is our inspiration and our keeper, so we need to involve Him as well. When you think you have formulated your vision well (both of them) feel free to put it on paper. When that is done we will go to our next step and put down our long term objectives! But we’ll talk about that next time.

This is the first post in a set of a personal development series that I am working on (actually I am stripping books down and stealing information from them) so be popping by now and then to see if I've posted any updates!

Ciao.

What is GOSPEL music?

Rehab: The Overdose (2011)

 First we need to know what the GOSPEL is, a popular definition is “an unquestionable truth” or “a religious doctrine which is generally accepted by members of that religion”, the Gospel in Christianity might also refer to the four books in the New Testament Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Now when you put all of these things together we basically get this: the Gospel of Christ Jesus is that he is God who was born in the form of man, lived and taught the unadulterated word of God, was crucified and thus bore our sins on the cross to create the avenue for our salvation. This is encompassed in the entirety of the Bible but highly condensed in the “Gospels”

Good, we’ve got that out of the way now … what is MUSIC? A cool definition states that music is “an artistic form of auditory communication incorporating instrumental or vocal tones in a structured and continuous manner”. Therefor by simple mathematics (actually more like concatenation in programming …) Gospel music is a form of auditory communication incorporating tones of any form that proclaim the Gospel of Christ. Period.

Rehab (2010)

Now we all know Hillsong, Bebe and Cece Winans, Soul Winners and a lot more. Their music is wonderful and uplifting, but is that all Gospel music has to offer? No way! There is so much gospel music out there that you would be astonished. So let’s look at some of what we have on offer to diversify our listening potential.

Now I’m not saying all other forms of music is not good, nah I’m not like that, I personally love loads of music from rap to R&B to rock so I’m not picky, it’s just that now and then we listen hard to what is playing and find out that some things that are said we would rather not want to hear. For example an EXTREMELY popular rap artist said in one of his relatively newer songs that (and I quote) "...Jesus can't save you, life starts when the Church ends”. Now I don’t want to put my foot in my mouth and say this or that, but saying something like that is very easy to misinterpret… Ah well, who am I to judge (and I really liked the way the song sounded too …)

So I want to introduce you guys to some seriously Blessed, Lyrical and Musical geniuses who are being used by Christ to spread his word to all people through music. They are Lecrae, Flame, Tedashii, Da T.R.U.T.H (rap), Toby Mac (alternative rock/rap), Casting Crowns (soft rock) and Deitrick Haddon, Tye Tribbett (R&B). Now this is no in depth article just a pointer, feel free to scuttle over to YouTube and check these artists out, I will be dropping some links at the end of the post.

Just for a moment I just want to highlight two of my favorite albums of the last few months. Coincidentally they are by the same artist, Lecrae. The albums are “Rehab” and “Rehab: the Overdose”. Lecrae is a seasoned artist who is able to drop sick punch lines that carry the Word of God and meaning.

There is more, much much more. Soon a dedicated page will be set up to discuss uplifting, lyrically killing, jamming tunes of all type where the word of the day is the WORD of God.

Peace out.

these are some links to YouTube pages featuring Christian artists

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lecrae&aq=f

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bless'ed&aq=f

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=trip+lee&aq=f

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=monty+g&aq=f

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dwayne+tryumf&aq=f