Indiana Jones, Immortality and the Grail Cup

Indiana Jones, Immortality and the Grail Cup

Donovan has just shot his father and Indiana Jones got one more reason to get to the Grail cup, drinking from it held the promise of immortality and his dad was in desperate need for immediate mortality at least!

He had to pass the “breadth of God”, the several heads littering the walkway suggested previous fatal attempts; the “breadth of God” did a good work of decapitation.

Indiana muttered the words to himself as he crept towards the walkway; “the penitent”, “the penitent” .............

”……….only the penitent shall pass”; the words written in his father’s diary.

Perspiration was running down his spine when it hit him “a penitent man is a humble man...............”. “A penitent man kneels before the lord!”

He immediately knelt and just then the swirl of a rotating blade swept past his hair. He crept forward, found and unhooked the metallic death machine that was one of the 3 guards to the grail cup, the rest is history.

Like Indiana Jones and his father in the “Last Crusade”, immortality is a quest humanity has romanced for centuries; we all wouldn’t want to die. The cosmetic industry as it is today attests to man’s unending devotion to youth, Old age is fast becoming abhorring.

The wisest of men wrote that “He has also put eternity in their hearts” Eccl 3:11.

At the heart of every Faith is the promise of immortality, in Christianity it is called “Eternal Life”, it goes on to suggest that eternal life begins right here on earth and really it does.

The ‘born again’ life is a spiritual one and it is not bound by the limitations of time. In eternity, nothing is going to happen as everything has happened. This perspective will allow us understand the promises of God and the immutability of His counsel, He speaks from eternity. As a child of God, one is blessed with all spiritual blessing (eternally).

Though I might have lost some earthly goods, be undergoing certain trials but from an eternal perspective the total result is always good.

The consciousness of this eternal life and the Kingdom of God (the premise for eternal life) is the prerequisite for a joyful and fruitful life in every age.

Like Indiana Jones, I’ve knelt before the Lord, believed His word and I do have eternal life!

Okwonna Nelson

www.nelsontalks.blogspot.com

N for Nicodemus: Defining Salvation

The term “born again” has suffered a thousand qualifications and would have suffered death for it! Some folks could give a limb to distance themselves from such a term, yet it was Jesus Christ himself who made the first allusion to that term. (Luke 3:3).

Born again? What does it mean? The definition is found in verse 6: “that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (note the capital “S” and the small “s”.

The explanation is really that simple; giving birth! A Spirit gave birth to another spirit (YOU). It is a spiritual birth, you are given birth to by God himself! An entirely new ( recent innovation) creature, that life is of another plane with different characteristics just like plant life is different from animal life because they belong to another “kingdom”.

A born again Christian is of another kingdom.

The life of the new spirit is called “eternal life”. Eternal life is not just longevity, it is the quality of that longevity! (a function of the Character of the parent”( 1 John 5:4, 1 John 5:16, 1 Peter 1:23)

There are no sin scars in that new spirit! There are scars on the mind and on the flesh but on the spirit? Nope, not one.

REAL LIFE

If you’ve ever struggled to be good you’ll understand the struggle saved believers often go through in their bid to get it right. How can I live above sin?

Answer: By faith! On this side of the divide (eternal life), everything is by faith since you are limited by a flesh suit. We can only access an unseen eternal life by faith, in my own personal struggle coming across John 8:12 did the magic. I held on to that scripture; it says that you cannot sin. As long as you are conscious of the Spirit that is in you you’ve overcome all of lives challenges including sin.

To maintain that consciousness it is paramount that we understand that a new creature could as well be an infant and such needs milk, then something tougher and later on meat. Most folks are mal nourished, (if you are do, go find a church or a mentor that teaches the Word). Your growth in the Word and obedience to the gospel of Christ (the things God will tell you) would influence your ability to assess the provisions of that new life and they are immense.

 God Bless

Okwonna Nelson (www.nelsontalks.blogspot.com)

nnamdiokwonna@yahoo.com

THE SEEKER AND BEAUTY UNTOLD

It is the soul of the faith

An ambassador’s honour

A soldier’s cause and a martyr’s tale

The best of news for society’s rum

And the eureka of her cream

A rooftop’s tale, told by the stairs

Freely received, often sold for money

The bleeding heart of a giver

The fugitive is loved

Pardon has been given

A life lived, judgement deserved

Death by crucifixion, two for company!

A groaning saviour? Or a mock king?

A forlorn wish and a surprise reply

Paradise today, not tomorrow!

Bleeding hearts or a battered mind

An infirm body or an abused one

A prodigal son and a waiting daddy

Breaking news; the seeker is sought!

Paradise today, not tomorrow!

 =============================
THE HOUND OF HEAVEN

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
  I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
  Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
........................................ ,..................................
Halts by me that footfall;
  Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstreched caressingly?
  "Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
  I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."

Francis Thompson (1859-1907)

Redeeming the arts 2

“Why do you paint them nude“ the tutor asked

“I want to see them the way God made them” Michelangelo answered

“You are not God, are you?” the tutor answered

============================================================================

“Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen”.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519)

Italian artist, engineer, and inventor.

Perspective: is the way we see/value things and the arts can be seen from different perspective. Someone said “there is only one angle at which one can stand straight and a thousand at which one could fall but humanity is testing the angles”!

A Common Question in My Generation is “what is wrong about that”? And the best answer I have found is “is anything wrong about anything?”

Is anything really wrong about anything? Is anything wrong about the contemporary art?

To pry into the morality and rationality of the contemporary art, the question above will always show up and I will let you do the answering.

If for the reader there is nothing wrong about anything then that is a state of moral relativism. In other words a state of “no absolute truth” and hence “no moral law giver”. Then stretch such a state further up and you could conclude that there is no practical difference between a Hitler and a Mother Theresa! Since it depends on the way you look at it as there are no concrete benchmarks for evaluation: a state of lack of meaning, the very thing that science deals with. The questions of what? Why? And How?

The state of moral relativism is illogical. Life itself seeks coherence.

In contemporary setting, a lot of music sell for their beats and rhythms and not necessary for the meaning of the songs and this is exactly what Shakespeare implied when he said:

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”

We have a generation of music and drama which in the words of its fans “does not necessary signify anything”: “full of sound and fury signifying nothing” according to Shakespeare.

That would have not been too bad if the “fan” believes in such a “no significance” view of life as Shakespeare. A noble scholar once said:            “First, art would imitate life, then life would imitate art. Ultimately Life would take its very existence from the arts”

In everyday life we evaluate source and then judge product from source, business men evaluate companies to rate their products. You would look at a restaurant’s setting before you consider their food, a vehicle before the service. It is only the ignorant that does anything less, and in the arts we have made the mistake of looking the other way.

The greatest crime really is simplicity!

The meaninglessness we perceive around every day I believe is because to some extent Life has taken its very existence from the art (something we didn’t necessary agree with but liked never the less).

The Law of Conscience

The Contemporary man I believe the law of his conscience when he chose that which he didn’t really agree with but likes none the less. When a young man sees a nude scene he doesn’t agree with but “just happens to like” he comes to a point where he must choose which appetite to feed; His heart or his feelings. It’s a question I have often asked myself; “why do I not feel good about that though I would want to see it again”?

It is in these choices that man either redefines art for himself or rejects himself. Because whenever we choose that which is against our better nature but excites our baser nature we not only estrange ourselves from God (the moral law giver and source of your heart-feelings), we estrange ourselves from ourselves.

Take a look at any contemporary artist of choice and you will see an estranged individual.

Man’s relish for the arts is a God given character as “Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists.”  C. S. Lewis. We redefine the arts by taking responsibility for what we watch or listen to, knowing quite well that sooner or later we would take our very existence from those. But then contemporary man can only derive the strength from a superior affection; the compelling power of a new affection. (see my previous note with the title “the compelling power of a new affection”)

Thanks

Okwonna Nelson

nnamdiokwonna@yahoo.com

Business Series 8: C for Capital

“Ideas are capital

The rest is just plain money”

German Bank

The Nigerian situation is a unique scenario; the marketplace has never been so threatened. I maintain that the average business man is a threatened species but the opportunities are still immense. In that light, the above statement is worth taking to heart as the worst of times are often the best of times.

What really is capital?

First, money is not real; it is a unit of measuring “economic value”. If you should obtain an executive MBA from Lagos business school, chances are that the “economic value” of your time would increase and hence your “take home”. Thus economic value could be “current” and “accumulated”.

My point is that if you are looking for “capital”, the first thing is to evaluate your current “economic value”. What is the current economic value of your time and your idea? It is not always exciting to see individuals of “near negative economic value” looking for capital!

You may not have a dime in your pocket but if you and your ideas have much “economic value” then leverage on that and you will find start-up finance. (I will do an article on leveraging on your economic value).

Your current “economic value” which is a summation of the worth of your idea, skills and time (by current market price!) is of more value than your weighted economic value (cash at hand).

There are 3 types of capital and 3 major questions

Faith Capital: you alone can bring this to the table

Human Capital: The summation of your experience

Money capital: what my friend Boma wants me to talk about!

a.       Can your faith carry it?

b.      If it can, can you?

c.       If both of you can, How?

THE” HOW” OF THE MATTER

1.       From where you are: we often underestimate/overestimate how much we need, sit down and calculate how much you really need. Write a business plan and see if you can observe the first rule of business “think big but start small”. Start from where you are: what you have!

2.       My capital: what and what can I sell? My money first, how can I leverage the resources within my control, can I back track the idea 3 steps backwards and start with the bigger picture in mind.

A home office, cyber office?, word of mouth advert, fbook?

3.       If I must borrow, let it be official: terms and conditions apply. Avoid assumptions, business is a serious matter. Family and friends are your best bet. Plan to repay.

4.       Equity: Can other people buy into my business? Do I need other people?  I always prefer a corporation with others with you than a partnership. Maintain at least 51% ownership. If other people can buy in, what are they offering? If you are taking people just for the money then take people who can invest more in the future, you could get better loan conditions in the future that way.

If you are a young man: an older, wealthier advisor could be a bonus when prayerfully chosen.

5.       Reinvest profits, no partying until you survive the first 3 years!

6.       Bank loans: not a good idea for a start up except when your “current economic value” is the collateral and expected profits far exceeds interest. If you’re idea is a very big one, mere preparing for a bank loan would help you shape up!

7.       As you start, let all your cash pass through a particular bank account. That way you have evidence of business that banks understand.

8.       As a rule, take a loan only when you must.

9.       In a corporation it is better to own 51% of the business and a CEO job than wait till you have 100%, you may never.

10.   Your greatest asset is God’s words in your heart. It is the blessing; He makes rich, He adds no sorrow with it. Sow seeds and please pay your tithe.

 Thanks

Okwonna Nelson

nnamdiokwonna@yahoo.com

MY LADY

I am not sure you’ve met Martha, but Martha is it! Beauty unparalleled, I thought I was doing ok till she came along (I found out I wasn’t!). It was like the sun shone like gold through the trees, how else can I describe such beauty? Ecstatic unbridled magnificent angelic loveliness! When you meet Martha, you become.

I promise not to bore you with the details but the first “date” (I can’t really call it that) was a candle light dinner at a friend’s place, destiny had it that we were on the same table but it was sheer dexterity that made me broach her (trust me). Later she told me that she would have sat there all evening without saying a word had I not taken the lead! I thank God that I did and History has shown the wisdom of those actions.

Martha is no failure, no, not at anything. She is the kind of a lady that would take shit and keep taking and yet still believe the best of everyone she met. She gives and gets to give again, if you heard her speak you would think the earth was paradise and we were all angels! My time with her has made a believer of me. Martha wouldn’t celebrate evil, even of her foes. Give her a good news, tell her of something beautiful and true and she would wake the neighbours with joy, for someone so blessed in Life, Martha lacks pride. If you heard a rude word from her, it’s probably you lacked some sense of humour!

She taught me that one of life’s best compensations is that one can never truly help others without helping oneself; that I should be ashamed to die without winning a trophy for humanity. Martha could sleep through a storm; she hardly get’s provoked and you could describe her mind as “beautiful”. Peradventure I am reading your mind right, she’s got lovely sisters too!

At our first “date”, I told myself that she must be the proud type, you can’t look that beautiful without it getting to your brains, she proved me wrong. She is the epitome of humility, and she isn’t acting. Like my mum (ha ha), she is not the type to parade herself; life is not Broadway. Her friends say she is not envious, I agree. Is Martha patient? Her patience could be trying at times! The most remarkable thing about Martha is her kindness; she always reminds me that there is no reason for an unkind word.

When folks think of “the lady”, they think of Martha. Though she is an allegory of Love, she is a real person. She lives on the inside of us. She is the person we must become and the person we hope to live with. It was Apostle Paul who said that the best of a blessed man without love is noise, a distraction, unharmonious piece of music (a clanging cymbal)! The best of his feats are ineffective and the best of his sacrifices are unrewarding.

It is a choice we must make every day; the one I do daily, to love God, to love you, to love my Lady and to love myself.
“As for us, we know that we have already passed out of death into Life--because we love our brother men. He who is destitute
of love continues dead.” 1 John 3:14 (WNT)

BUSINESS SERIES 7: WHAT GATES DID THAT YOU HAVEN’T

INTRODUCTION

The marketplace is an interesting arena; few people understand it because few people study it. Folks go there to obtain goods, services, wages and returns on investment but it took certain folks to conceptualize and create the marketplace. The point is that the marketplace is man-made!

Like the “father Christmas” and “Valentine’s day” euphoria that generates billions of dollars in sales volume each year, business men will keep on creating cash yielding concepts  that  can be factored virtually into everything, religion not excluded.

Business to some “practitioners” is all about the bottom line; cash returns, but to some others it is a vocation, any potential and practicing business person if he/she would go far must be able to understand trends. Things don’t just happen, people happen to things and one has to understand why. When next you see a new product on the shelve, look closer and meditate on the concept behind it, the rationale of the developer, the response of the industry and the merit of the venture. You’ll be surprised to learn that you could predict trends from mere observation and deductive reasoning even in industries you know little about. For instance certain stocks on the Nigerian stock market would shoot up for the next two years to an astronomical level e.g. Diamond bank because they have a clean bill of health compared to their contemporaries and Pension funds must be invested! (I happen not to deal in stocks much). And certain pension stocks are much devalued (though the pensioners don’t know yet) because they have been invested on the stock market which is just reviving.

GATES

What did he do?

 In a nutshell Bill Gates unlike most folks was able to understand the nature of the computer industry, to project into its future and to (the hardest part) to convince himself that his idea is the next big thing on the planet.

The problem in Africa is that we lack self-belief; even those that believe in God limit Him to a “spiritual experience”. Folks, everyday, everyday, except you’ve no relationship with God, His seed on the inside of you is crying out for expression in everyday issues but most time you’ve looked at yourself, your surrounding and have despised the seed! The worst lie we tell ourselves is that if it is a good idea someone else should have done it, that someone else is you.

The deceitfulness of riches didn’t hinder Gates (the idea that if you don’t have money you’re probably stupid and vice versa); He practically gave away Microsoft Windows but retained ownership. Study his story, if you don’t have money like Joseph Jacob Isaac give the idea away to one with the means (it would have been lost anyway) and bargain to retain ownership/executor rights.

When people with marvelous ideas and no money complain it is because they are either too selfish or are unable to package themselves for a bargaining process. If you are really blessed, you must have noticed the ability of God to always give you better ideas. So to someone reading this article that idea in your heart probably is the only thing that can bring you before the king, don’t despise it, don’t be too selfish to share it, and don’t be too foolish to lose ownership completely.

Most times what will retain ownership for you is competence; the fact that no one else can be trusted to do it as good as you can. This is why reputation is everything, especially when you are starting out. For Bill Gates, the king was the president of IBM.

When you are passionate but Kobo less remember.

                                                Give thanks for the situation (at least you have something!)

                                                Dig; the resource/information is always around/beneath you

                                                Offer what you’ve got to commoners and then to the king (in that order)

God is faithful; He will not leave anyone without a talent at least. Where is yours?

Redeeming the Arts

Redeeming the arts
“He turns revolt into a style, prolongs
The impulse to a habit of the time.

Thom Gunn (1929 - 2004)”


British poet.
The Sense of Movement, "Elvis Presley”

Man by nature is a fan of the arts (probably because he was made by an artist!), He can sway to the tunes of a melody in an unknown tongue, appreciate a wonderful drama in which no words were spoken, the duo of music and drama is common fabric of every culture.
In the African forest, it was tales by moonlight, the beautiful young daughters of the land swayed like gazelles to the melody of the drum and the flute. Old men and women spun tales that would fire imaginations of the young and bear retelling many years later. Man has for centuries longed for entertainment and has found ways to satisfy that yearning. Central to this universal need is the creative genius in man; this genius is seen in the life of a child with his/her capacity for wonder. Tell a child of Alice in wonderland and you’ve found a friend, let the child grow up a little and Peter Pan would do, with the advance in years comes the need to stretch the limit in order to achieve the same degree of wonder and man has tried over the years to climax a climax, at 11 it would take a “Terminator” to thrill him.
Chinua Achebe stirred our creative genius and we applauded, Wole Soyinka did the same and we all remember him for that and Shakespeare too. A great story it would have been until Hardley Chase showed up to illustrate our darker nature, it didn’t take long for pornography magazines to give the lurid details. Stephen King then dared us to stand the tale of it, Harry Porter asked since we didn’t believe in God we could try the witches!
The effect of the Arts always begins from literature (tales, logic and books) to drama, then the logical progression to kitchen table talk (our experience). 45 years ago, nobody thought we would come this far, when the Blues replaced Afro-American spiritual and country Waltz we believe it told the tale of the heart making way for a billion dollar industry that peddled love. From love, the attention shifted to sex, man needed greater stimuli, we had developed tolerance! Madonna’s “material girl” hit the airwaves, at first it shocked some but we later made her a star.
Drama (movies) had to play catch up and over the years it has provided ample illustration to the strides of music and literature.
In Jackson, we saw the progression from “cool” to “wild” to sheer “Wacko”. It would have been ok if the wacko stopped at the screens but it has entered most bedrooms from the sitting room, man had underestimated the arts. It entered in and abused little boys and girls, signed divorce papers and bolstered gay issues, sold drugs and started shooting guns, now it is delivering home-made bombs!
In Presley, we should have known that it wasn’t real. The modern art as you know is a maze of Mundane unrealities becoming existing realities i.e. if you behold it long enough, in the beginning we created arts now it is creating us. The recent Grammies illustrates this point quite well; man is trying to achieve another climax after attaining psychological dependence. if the divorce stats, depression rates, prescription pill related deaths, boobs and tummy tucks, uncanny affections, HIV rate and the average American star emotional life is not sufficient to alarm us then the thought is alarming!
The classical theatrical make-up now involve Botox needles and scheduled surgery visits, man has aromatized himself to impotency. Teenagers not only throng pharmacies for condoms now but for Viagra too!
A frog would jump out of a pot of hot water, but if you put him in a cold one and bring it to boil gradually you have a Chinese dessert, like John Nash in “a beautiful mind” it is time we realize that “it can’t be real, she never grows old”. There is always enough indices to separate reality from unrealities and one is rationality, our modern art has enough inbuilt contradictions to be explained away but man has refused to hearken, not when he is working on another high.
If drinking sea water is the only option for a man stranded in the middle of the sea, it is still a death sentence. Contemporary man is a thirsty man in on a sea of contemporary art, He has looked around, drunk a mouthful, a bottle-full and has adjusted to the taste.
Jesus on the other hand, knows that sea water would never do and had made a candid plea that still bears repeating when He said, “Are you thirsty? Come”.
You don’t have to drink sea water.


Okwonna Nelson