What is LOVE? (part1)

What do you think about when you hear the word Love? Relationships? Chocolate? Red hearts? Sex? "I know this is love when i feel something that i have never felt before...". So if you have never been constipated before your chance for love may come in the form of a small pill, Imodium.

I belong to great fellowship of believers who meet once a week to just get to know how God wants us to live. We are currently going through a cool book on love called; “The Exploits of Love” by Eastwood Anaba. Many things that I'll post today are from that meeting and taken from that book.

Now really, what is love? If we slide over to 1 Corinthians 13 we will find the correct definition.

1 Corinthians 13: 4-7: "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres."

Now for all of you whose girlfriends ask “How do you know you love me?” feel free to make them feel bad and quote these verses. Please do not add that she is annoying … Love is hard eh!

But on the serous side, looking at these verses we can find out that love is more of a character and less of a feeling. Often times we rely on the “feeling” side of love, but what happens when that “feeling” is gone, or if you wake up on the wrong side of the bed. Why should we limit our concept of love to relationships between guys and girls? It’s like having a big pie and only eating the crust. Everywhere we go love is being defined for us, if you don’t think so, what does “making love” mean? My point exactly. It’s about time we come up with our own REAL definition of love. Love is how we should treat everyone, not just the ONE.

In part 2 we’ll talk more about the dynamics of love and how to really love people, as well as many of the common misconceptions that love is tagged with.

Adios!

Darth FUFU!

Darth Fufu

HUMANS! cower in the presence of  .... Darth Fufu!

Kwame Sarpong worked for “Ashanti Home Touch”, he was delivering the food for an engagement in Chokor. All of a sudden a goat ran across the road and he swerved violently, his vehicle bursting through the brand new railings on the highway that now spans Korle Lagoon.

It was 10 minutes before his body was dragged from the murky lagoon and rushed to Korle-Bu teaching hospital. The doctors did all they could for him, but his body was too badly damaged by the combined effects of the toxic lagoon and the fufu that was in the back of the delivery van. He would be on life support for the rest of his life…

Or so they thought.

Mr. Sarpong opened his eyes slowly; an old wrinkled face peered down at him. The face told him that he had been given a new lease on life, and that supernatural powers had been bestowed on him at great cost, a cost that needed to be payed. Mr. Sarpong did not exist anymore. Behold the birth of Darth Fufu!

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

Preconceived Concepts

Lord Harmattan, Darth FUFU and SHOEmaker

Hello peoples,

I had initially wanted to wait for Saturday to release the final versions of the characters I'm working on but hey! I need to please my few readers or they will get bored and leave me alone to talk to myself ...

here are three characters that I've rough-sketched, you will see more finalized versions as well as the characters some of the other commenter's created. we are still accepting ideas so feel free to post! Remember this is OUR VERY OWN GHANAIAN comic, (which i hope will kick Zingaro out of the picture) lets all be a part!

Me against THE ECONOMY

In the good old days … when I was young … I remember when …

These are phrases we have heard time and time again from parents, uncles, older family members and sometimes from people we don’t even feel like talking to who just happened to catch us off-guard. We are often reminded of how they used to walk to farms and to school, of how they studied HARD and never gave up. How they struggled to get into university and when they came out how they got a job.

Hey did you hear that correctly? Let me go back and say that again “when they came out of university they got jobs”. Now this statement seems rather normal. Until you finish university in OUR generation and find that getting a job isn’t as easy as it looks.

Back in the “Good ol’ days” there was a high demand for educated workers, when our parents were in university they used to receive allowance and had rooms to themselves (well at least till some point). Well times have changed now … in some public universities like the glorious ----- four people are quashed into an excavated sardine tin which they call a room. When you got there your life is your problem, and when you finally finish school finding a job is harder than using your tongue to touch your nose.

These days most jobs are looking for people with “5 years relevant work experience”, so for all of us who finished uni a few years ago are left to dry like your skin in harmattan. This has led to the development of the “Galamzey Mentality” amongst a segment of the youth today (where youth is essentially 35 and below … if you are 40 you aren’t and old man but you are definitely not a youth).

Nowadays every relatively young person is looking to create a job for themselves, partly because we don’t feel like sitting under the thumb of some old dude, but mainly for the reason that finding an orthodox job is difficult, and once you get it you find that it is mentally and creatively unchallenging and dampening, doesn’t pay enough for you to sit in traffic for 2-4 hours a day as well as a load of other things as well. Now don’t get me wrong here, many people get good jobs, and quite a lot of them pay well, but not everyone is enjoying these benefits (especially those who don’t have CONNECTIONS). Even those with jobs are looking for side attractions to lubricate their harmattan infested wallets.

Now I’m not writing this article to complain, rather I think that the entrepreneurial spirit displayed by we youth today is simply admirable, and we need to do things right. I can relate to people who are trying to get their businesses off ground zero and have parents sitting on their necks saying “oh Kwame, don’t you think it would be better to get a job?”. Don’t let disappointments get in the way of you starting and sticking to your own business, have a good vision and mission, make sure you have realistic plans that you can stick to and even if you are working on it part time (after your regular 9 to 5) you can still achieve a lot with proper time management and a little investment. Soon it will be our time to shine in Ghana’s economy, let’s make sure that we shine like the sun on not a polished shoe.

Also let’s patronize Done-by-us-Goods, we can be our own CONNECTIONS. We all need clients for our businesses to thrive so if we make sure that we create our own business communities we will definitely succeed, it just takes time, and since God is on our side, there aint nobody who can be against us …. At least not successfully.

So drop a comment with your business name, and what you do and let’s spread the word!

Adios Amigos

p.s. power to the lizard ... its time to scare the dogs

Fooling .... I mean Fueling

Is it just me or did the fuel station guy rip me off ...

In fact, when I had heard that the beloved lifeblood of my fine Korean made vehicle had increased in price by 30% this morning, my blood pressure rose by approximately the same amount. 30%! ... It might be necessary but hey!

Essentially I spend about GHC 200.00 on fuel in a month, with the added 30% it means that I will be spending GHC 260.00 a month on fuel … that’s a GHC 60.00 difference, and the last time I checked my salary hadn’t risen. Good bye Rhapsody’s and Tasty Jerky on a Friday night, it will now be replaced by a somber visit to Legon’s night market, 1 egg and no meat please.

Fortunately I am not too politically biased so I won’t say that this is an NDC thing or some rubbish like that, I hear the worlds crude oil price has risen to about U$ 90.00 a barrel, and the government has increased the TOR levy (a tax essentially) from 0.2% to 0.6% (according to the honorable minister of Information when speaking on a show with K. Pratt Jr.). Interestingly enough when I checked the prices of fuel over the past year (you can check it yourself with the link below) fuel prices have been between 75-90 dollars a barrel. Ah well do the math’s yourself. My problem isn’t if the price rise is justifiable or not (it probably is), but the fact that it’s going to harm my already miserable pocket.

I feel sorry for the people who have to wait 30 minutes to 2 hours to get transport to and from work, but now I am also definitely feeling sorry for the people who own their own cars … no one’s got it good o!

Anyhowly, I do feel that the government announcing a reshuffling of the ministerial positions was a ploy to get our minds off the fact that we have no more money after paying for transportation. And I feel sorry for them, they did tell us that they would reduce the oil prices when they were the opposition and the NPP pulled a fast one on them by reducing it just before they were ousted, which has now resulted in an interesting case of “foot-in-mouth-disease”. They should just man up and tell us Ghanaians the truth that the government can’t subsidize fuel for us and let us struggle to find a way to sort ourselves out. I think we can handle the truth, don’t you?

Feel free to drop you comments, and if you don’t agree with something I said, tell me, I’m not a close minded bigot!

Later peeps,

Added: 06/01/11

You know something, its very fortunate and unfortunate that the fuel increase has happened at this time of year. On the fortunate side; at least we were able to spend all our money during Christmas without whining over the new fuel price. On the other hand, some of us have spent our December salary already, basically meaning that January was going to be the month of miserly living, now with the added fuel price some of us have invested in shovels so that when we die our family members have the tools to bury us ...

References:

http://www.oil-price.net/?gclid=CIL5ocDVoaYCFQEOfAod1Tw_jQ

http://news.myjoyonline.com/news/201101/58675.asp

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=200602

SUPER!

Hello there,

This is the prototype of BRA GHANA, Ghana's very own slightly yawa super hero. As is standard superhero policy (as stated in the superhero handbook) his real identity is a secret, known only to himself and a few associates ....

Now the thing is this, he need allies and enemies to make the story really interesting. So therefore we are accepting ideas for superheroes and super-villains alike.

Heres the thing, just post a comment with the name of your super hero/villain and their main abilities, you can also describe how you would like them to look as well!

e.g. super-villain: Darth-Fufu
abilities: fufu-beam, the beam has the ability to make anyone feel instantly lethargic and sleepy, the beam also lowers productivity and clouds the mind for a short period of time ....
features: a knock-off version of Darth Vader with a pot belly suit

Feel free to give me the most crazy ideas you have, you never know, your idea may feature in the upcoming comic!