TUNNEL LIGHTS

Updated the website: 9 new poems and new blog entry. Check it out if you likehttp://www.cfbrown.com/

If you have been following my tweets then you know that I have been wanting a Fountain Pen for sometime now. After a few weeks of online searching, peaking in and out of different office supply shops I came across this one here at office depot.

It was the only one they had, and the woman said that they would not be carrying fountain pens anymore. This had been reduced to more than half its original price, so it was a very good deal. I enthusiastically took to my journal and scraps of paper and was quite pleased.

A few days had passed and the quality of the ink had become an issue. The ink that came with it, Parker’s quink black, tends to spread after drying and bleeds through lowgrade paper (i.e copy paper, scraps, and notebook paper) but does not bleed through in my journal. The other issue I had with this ink was that it was not a true black. After drying, it has a tendency to try a dark grey that gets lighter as the ink runs out.

So my next purchase was this,

it is Higgins Eternal black ink. This ink said that it was good for use in calligraphy pens, fountain pens, art pens, and air brushing guns.

DO NOT USE THIS IN YOUR FOUNTAIN PEN. This ink was horrible, it spread more than the Quink ink that the pen came with. It wrote and dried grayer than the quink black and bled through the lower grade paper and my journal pages and It also smeared.

This ink is terrible for fountain pens.

The next ink I went to was Higgins Calligraphy black. The box said that this ink was also good for use in calligraphy pens, fountain pens, art pens, and air brushing guns. This ink was blacker than the Eternal but still grey compared to the quink. It also spread less than the Eternal but more than the quink. The completely irritating quality of this ink was that it did not have a good flow at all. My script handwriting has lots of loops and quick dashes, with this ink, they all disappeared. It seems to prefer lines that are vertical lines only. Again this ink was not good for me. If you write in print, this in is ok but script/cursive it’s a very bad ink

There was a week of research that followed and there were two inks that I found to stand out on the pen websites and seemed to suit my needs. The first was the ink that everyone raved over called aurora black ink. This by far all the reviewers and other pen people said that aurora black ink is the gold standard that all other fountain pen ink is measured against. It was said to not have any bleed through, possess a rich and deep black color, no spreading, and the quality of paper did not matter. The only other ink that was said to posses all these qualities was Noodler's Bulletproof BLACK EEL Fountain Pen Ink. This was the ink that I purchased at castle in the air (http://www.castleintheair.biz/) in Berkeley California. Where John whom was EXREAMLY knowledgeable helped me with excellent customer service that was not phony or pushy but truly genuine and wanted to make sure I got the right product.  So thank you John

This ink is FANTASTIC, not only does it posses all of the qualities it says it has (no bleed through, possess a rich and deep black color, no spreading, and the quality of paper does not matter) It also claims to be water proof. I have not tested that one out yet. It wrote smoothly as a ink should, with loving care for my loops and horizontal lines and quick dashes. It did not dry grey or have any hints of grey and it is thick, like one expects to see from ink, but it does not clog. This ink was about 15 dollars so its not cheap but the quality of ink seems as if it will last me a while. Ill hang my hat on this ink and give the aurora a try when this bottle is through.

As I read this book of few pages there were many different themes that ran through it: Tradition, Afrocentricity, and African village life pre and post colonialism. The one that is most personal and prevalent to me was the one that reigned from beginning to end, Manhood. Things fall apart written by Chinua Achebe opens with introducing us to Okonkwo. His ideas of manhood are born out of resentment of his father. I would go as far as to say that Okonkwo’s contempt of his father is the foundational bedrock upon which he shaped his entire worldview. The ideal of a man, manhood, and how a man conducts himself at home and in society all, in my opinion, was fashioned by doing and being the opposite man he believed his father to be.

Okonkwo’s father was a carefree musician that lived for fun and the feast. He was also a debtor, so much so that he owed most everyone in the village. His barn was small, he had only one wife, and no title or place of honor in the village. If the lacking of any status symbols were not enough for Okonkwo to view his father with shameful eyes, he died in such a way that he could not be permitted a respected death at home. He had to be taken to the outskirts of the village and left to die because his sickness was one that village tradition dictated was foul and an abomination against the earth goddess. He could not die in the village or the village would be cursed and he could not be buried in the earth because that would also be a curse.

A very young Okonkwo was the man of the house now. The only son of a man with no title, and after his father’s debts were paid, no barn and no yam seeds, had to find a way to care for his grieving mother and his father’s family. He swore that day, to never be what his father was and in doing so, he proved himself. At his very early age, even by the village standards, he provided. He proved himself to be a brave and fearless warrior by taking the heads of a few men in war. He also proved himself greatly in sport by defeating someone that the entire clan considered unbeatable. With age, he gained titles and places of honor. He took three wives and had a larger than average of compound and barn. He even held one of the highest honors as an Egwugwu. An Egwugwu is essentially a person that is possessed by an ancestral spirit that dons a mask and delivers justice or punishment.

This was all counter balanced by Okonkwo being just as stern on himself as he was with everyone, and was even considered too harsh sometimes by the other men of the village. Okonkwo did not show any emotions except anger because it was the only manly emotion. He did not speak often and was a man of very few words, because only women and children constantly talked and made noise, men took action. He never borrowed except the one time because a real man supported himself and his family on his own. As we also see, a man never openly shows affection to his wife or children, and if he does, it is done in a very manly way. A real man was a divine instrument of correction, punishment and however misguided, direction.

Just as it seems that Okonkwo’s manhood plan is working for him he is brought to poetic shame by an accident considered female in the tradition of the village. The proud and respected Okonkwo was now an outcast, by village law he and his family were forced to live in his mother’s village for seven years while all the men of the village burned his compound to the ground. He was stripped of his title and standing and in his eyes alone, was the equivalent to the boy he was so long ago.

Seven years pass and Okonkwo rebuilds. He planned to come back to the village and make himself into a greater man than what he was before his tragic womanly accident. His plan was set but the times had changed, missionaries, white men, had come bringing a new religion, and new laws to the land. At first, it only claimed the outcasts and the undesirables of the village and clans that no one wanted or liked anyway. His standing on the missionaries and white men were, at worse nothing more than a joke. At worse Okonkwo saw them as a young pest that needed to be squashed before it grew too large. After eventually calming a portion of land considered unholy, a few villagers considered normal, a few men of high title, and his oldest son, Okonkwo begins to break down.

The conflict further escalates when an unruly outcast turned Christian spitefully unmasks an egwugwu. This would essentially be the same as someone killing an archbishop. In Okonkwo’s eyes, this meant out right war, but the men of the village seemed too had lost their thirst for blood as in days of old. They all talked, compromised, and resorted to burning down the mission. This action causes Okonkwo and all the men of high title and status to essentially be held for ransom and beaten, falsely imprisoned, and unfairly tried under the queen’s law. Like a freshly chastised child, Okonkwo goes home angered beyond the point rage or anger could properly express and swears revenge, even if he is the only MAN left willing to do so. At home Okonkwo recalls the days of his youth with when talking to an enemy like some of the men now did would not have been given serious consideration. The womanly reasoning, as he saw it, would have been left to the women while the men took heads and drove out the missionaries.

The book closes in a grand meeting, which Okonkwo despises, talking about what to do, and if these actions meant war was the proper action. Okonkwo forces the hand and seeing, realizing, in his mind, that he is the only REAL MAN left amongst them he does what I believe he believed to be a final slight at all the cowards that called themselves men and an example to the village of what he believed the proper action that they all are eternally doing now.

Over all, this book was very boring; by the time it started to get interesting, it was over. I really had to force myself to finish. This I never thought I would come across a book that I found utterly dry, to be as interesting as it was. Okonkwo and his arrested development kept me wanting to see what happen next. If you are a quick reader I say, go ahead and read. The more you think about and contemplate the dynamics, themes, and character analysis of the book, that becomes tremendously more interesting that the actual meat of the book itself. If you have a short attention span or need something with action or a twist and turn to keep you going, do not ready this book.         

I think I'm going to have to give up on this book. I really dislike saying such things but I am very underwhelmed by The Call of Cthulhu and other weird stories by H.P. Lovecraft. It could be due to desensitization or the amount of hype and praise that various friends gave H.P. Lovecraft. I am a proud child of the 70’s and 80’s so some of the first media I was ever exposed to was the slasher horror flick. Jason, Michael Myers (Halloween 3 sucked so much I begged my mother to let me watch it and was so mad because it was nothing like 1 or 2, and was really poorly written and made no sense) Freddy Kurger, Chucky, Damien, and Regan Burstyn were all the odd protagonist of my day. Some of my favorite television in my childhood was the twilight zone, the outer limits, tales from the darkside, tales from the crypt, monsters, and one of the ones that really love was Friday the 13^th the series.

When I allotted time to be properly horrified by the man countless critics called, the father and master of American horror I was very disappointed. His writing style is beautiful he is one of the few writers that transform the written word into experience. There is a point that you do not notice where you stop reading and you are merely following the events of the unfolding epic. The unfortunate part is the epic that unfolds is the archetype of anticlimactic. I wanted to like these stories, and they were good, but from what I had heard, I expected a great deal more.

Dagon: seemed to be nothing more than a spooky dream that had not reached full nightmare status at worse, an initial outline for The Call of Cthulhu at best

The Statement of Randolph Carter: Was an attempt at suspense but the constant reminder of the horrors that we can not see, and would drive a weaker man insane only made the second hand recount of the terrors more interesting and I was hoping at one point he would jump down the well and just help his friend. To me as the reader I thought that was the logical next step but it wasn’t and the ending, Ill be honest, was campy.

Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family: This was just silly and a tad bit racists. He protagonist sets himself on fire because he finds out that he is probably the last descendent of a race of white gorillas that happen to breed with people.

Celphais: Is really a story about a guy that had a good acid dream and spends the rest of his life trying to get back to it and dies when he does.

Nyarlathotep: I believe this was probably what inspired the first two mummy movies. If you have seen them then you have the jist of this short here.

And the great

The Call of Cthulhu: This was such a disappointment. Cthulhu is an ageless squid, octopus dragon god with wings that has been dormant but conscience for ages beyond count or measure. It gives artists and poets nightmares and causes its worshipers to go frantic with frenzy. Anyone that speaks of Cthulhu to anyone that does not know of Cthulhu, dies. One day a sailor stumbles upon Dagon’s island… I mean Cthulhu’s island and sees Dagon’s monolith… I mean Cthulhu’s monolith and the rest of ancient city that housed the old one. “and what an age-old cult had failed to do by design, a band of innocent sailors had done by accident. After vigintillions of years great Cthulhu was loose again, and ravening for delight." I mean that line alone just one of the things that angers me. I mean if you have been around trillions of years before the first organisms on earth began to form and shaped the very thoughts of early man in ape form, you could not get one of your worshipers to come jail break you? And how weak are you that a boat can ram you and cause your head to explode. COME ON

I read a few other stories but I wont review them because I don’t like to continue in negative. If you like Horror and are a great fan of Poe, stay away from H.P. Lovecraft, save for style and technique alone. The contents of these stories, however beautifully written, are for me a classic case of the dangers of hype.

So I did a HUGE update to my website

New home page

http://cfbrown.com/index.htm

28 new poems

http://cfbrown.com/index_files/Page489.htm

6 new color photos

http://cfbrown.com/index_files/Page1524.htm

2 new black and white

http://cfbrown.com/index_files/Page6776.htm

New Blog section

So far its just my latest book reviews and blogs

http://cfbrown.com/index_files/Page25791.htm

check it out

Every so often, I come across a book that not only causes me to examine my most steadfast beliefs but also resonates with them, as if the book was a tuning fork struck against my soul. Walden by Henry David Thoreau is one such book. Calling it a mere book I feel, is doing it an injustice. What these letters, these syllables, and words form in their entirety is, to me, one of the great literary works of art. Walden by Henry David Thoreau is a work of the greatest, deepest philosophical proportions that any lover of wisdom would be doing him or herself a disservice by passing the opportunity to take the trip to the pond by. Walden by Henry David Thoreau, unlike other works of this magnitude, is also not written so as that it confounds understanding to those whom would read this as template to their own love ode of nature.

On the dust jacket or back of the book you might find something equivalent to saying that Walden is the two year, two month, two day, (and knowing Thoreau two hour) chronicles of a man that built a home and lived by a pond that gives title to the book. It might also express his declaration of discontent of what was then modern man; his society that he felt lacked its right to claim civility, and his technology. This is all very much true but like Thoreau, there was more, much more than those opening words and simplified thoughts laying on the surface can explain.

What resides in these pages are, what was then, a new philosophical view that respected nature. It explained that nature was more than something to be tamed and or bent to the will of man and called for recognition of its sovereignty. In Walden Thoreau also asserted that to call one’s self a man, a civilized man, one must not behave as the beasts of nature.

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city, you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”

 Henry David Thoreau

Walden

The first chapter, Economy, the longest single piece of work in the book, outlines why he embarked on this mission. From early on, it reads as if a semi-edited stream of consciousness that expresses a yearning to simplify one’s life and rid oneself of the rigors that social life and a proper standing in high society of New England demanded.

“Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.”

Henry David Thoreau

Walden

He expresses his contempt for the high esteeming attitude, which still prevails today, people had and have for fashion, homes, and miss appropriated civic pride and calls all that read to come to an epiphany of what is true and what actually is necessary in life. He also does not shy away from telling and expressing his faith. He also does not hold a close mind in that believing he can only learn from faith solely but expresses how all of nature is part of creation and there by his learning is only heighten, not hindered by experiencing and being a part of nature. This being a part of nature he also felt and expressed that civilized man was again retreating from too rabidly.

“Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry.”

Henry David Thoreau

Walden

I pause here to say that the chapter entitled Reading will forever hold a special place in my heart because of this quote here,

“A written word is the choicest of relics. It is something as once more intimate with us and more universal that any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself. It may be actually breathed from all human lips; not be represented on canvas or in marble only, but be carved out of the breath of life itself.”

Henry David Thoreau

Walden

If you read Walden for nothing else, I say read enough to get to this point. Read until you have arrived to this statement so you can fully appreciate the profoundness and beauty of what had been written, what your eyes just had the privilege to have read. Anyone that writes, anyone that sings, anyone that appreciates literature, poetry, and song for the art that it is understands the wonder that was expressed by such an uncomplicated and deeply insightful statement. One other statement that truly reveals how this man born in 1817 and this work written in 1854 was far ahead of its time, reaching into our own some one hundred and fifty four years later, but also shows how far we have not gone in the those one hundred and fifty four years.

“Society is commonly too cheap. We meet at very short intervals, not having had time to acquire any new value for each other. We meet at meals three times a day, and give each other a new taste of that old musty cheese that we are. We have had to agree on a certain set of rules, called etiquette and politeness, to make this frequent meeting tolerable and that we need not come to open war. We meet at the post office, and at the sociable, and about the fireside every night; we live thick and are in each other’s way, and stumble over one another, and I think that we thus lose some respect for one another. Certainly less frequency would suffice for all important and hearty communications.”

Henry David Thoreau

Walden

Clearly Thoreau touched on points that we still speak about today, if not it is probably worse today. We do not sit down with friends or family today for even one meal yet we hold strict contempt for strangers that disobey the rules of etiquette and politeness. I once saw a woman curse another woman out because she did not hold the door open for her as they were walking in the store, but the woman that walked in the store in front of the other woman did not even see or know another person was behind her so why would she hold the door open. If we change the post office to starbucks or some fast-food place for lunch and the fire side to tv or computer and we have relevant commentary about today.

This is where my love affair with Walden ends. If you are reading this work for its philosophical merit alone then I will say upon approaching the chapter The bean field skip to the conclusion. The remainder of the book is just details and true odes to birds, fishing, the pond, and other natural aspects that have worth but reading all of them becomes very monotonous. Read this book for its philosophical worth. Read this book for its historical value and being one of the early roots of environmentalism and naturalism in America. Read this book and ponder.

“Shall we always study to obtain more of these of these things, and not sometimes to be content with less?

Henry David Thoreau

Walden

I just finished reading this wonderful work of American political though and history. Like all these old works that helped shape this country and laid the foundation of what it should be, these few pages are far beyond epic. He makes his contempt for the clearly hypocritical institutions of slavery, the Mexican American war and the eventual annexing of Texas, political corruption, taxation, revolution, as well as some political ideology that was and still is staining the fabric American society and culture well known.

“But , to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves non-government men, I ask for not at once no government but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step towards obtaining it.”

This speaks far beyond going out and voting, but actually getting involved in the system that says that it holds your best interests at its core and holding that system accountable to this statute. Letting officials know that the state and government is in place to work for the citizen not the citizen is in place to support the state. This was something that Thoreau foresaw and I believe as we are now, in one of the times in history where the common American thought as well as the common American politician believes their work is far beyond the capacity of the average citizen to understand, and would never acknowledge that the common American citizen is their work.

Early on he recognized and pointed out the corruption that was, and still, in the hearts of some elected officials, and the morality of and in revolution which this country was founded on,

“All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.”

If you’re looking for a book that was foundational in its day and still as revolutionary a hundred and seventy something years later, pick this up and give it a read. If you are a Thoreau reader this is somewhat a divergence away from the birds and the trees but wonderful nonetheless.

I Was watching Tavis Smiley speak with Michelle Rhee and it lead me to thinking about Charter Schools. the hyperlink for charter schools is very general and varies state by state. If you are from California, the bay area specifically, then you yourself or someone you know went to a charter school. You very well could have had an aunt or uncle that went to a charter school that was ran by the panthers back in the day.

I’m somewhat split on the idea. The public school system, especially in California, is in drastic need of overhaul. You can spend the twelve or so years in Oakland, San Francisco, or Hayward public school system and get all A’s from K-12 and still NEVER meet the qualifications to get into SF state or U, Cal Berkeley or Hayward (now called Cal east bay) and don’t even think about Stanford located in Palo Alto California. I would love to see the numbers on how many locals are admitted each year. To me that is a shame. It is one of the best schools in the nation and the world, people from all across the globe send their children to Stanford yet the kid that was born and raised in Palo Alto and was educated in the Palo Alto school district would not and does not consider Stanford and a viable option for higher education, even if they were able to afford it they know they would automatically have to spend 2-3 years in a Junior College then maybe another 2-3 in state and then cross their fingers and pray.   We also know that  UC’s not only are more expensive than they have ever been but actively recruit from outside the state so they can charge those students more on admissions and other fees. That is another issue that I wont get into here.

On the one hand a students surrounded by like minded and other similarly talented students tend to do better in that area. (I.e. art, dance, music, ect) but then it does rob the public school of the natural talents and experience that those students bring. If all your students that live in that area that are talented or have an interest in art all go to the art charter school then why offer art in the regular school. This is what happens and in part, by not creating a need or interest in those area (art, dance, music ect) public school boards see no need to fund, (if there were funds, again another issue), music, art, dance, ect programs. I remember in 6th grade we had one music class (for one day) with instruments, and you could only take choir. Yes until 7th grade I was in school choir and it was nothing Like glee. My high school did not even have a choir or glee club and the kids that were in band in high school had to bring their own instruments. I thought that was bad, but recently my little cousin told me that school does not even have: art, music, or dance in her school. She has a guy come in once a month or so and they do a group project with her grade level (she is in high school and is showing a natural talent for photography)

So yeah talent specific charter schools seem great for the student that expresses a talent from an early age. I would love to see my little cousin shuttled off to some charter school that focused on and helped her build and develop her talent as a photographer. On the opposite coin, If my cousin has this proclivity then im sure there are others that if they were able to take photography (or even art) as an elective, might spark a fire in them. They may not be able to draw in or sing in 5th grade but after their voice changes we could have missed out on the next great tenor because they never had the opportunity to explore and try. Isn't that what are schools supposed to be, places of learning, exploration of self, and education? To prepare them for college and life not babysitters for 5-18 year olds.

“This bill, passed late last night in a 93-7 vote, declares the entire USA to be a “battleground” upon which U.S. military forces can operate with impunity, overriding Posse Comitatus and granting the military the unchecked power to arrest, detain, interrogate and even assassinate U.S. citizens with impunity.
It’s being called the most traitorous act ever witnessed in the Senate, and the language of the bill is cleverly designed to make you think it doesn’t apply to Americans, but toward the end of the bill it essentially says it can apply to Americans “if we want it to.”
The passage of this law is nothing less than an outright declaration of WAR against the American People by the military-connected power elite. If this is signed into law, it will shred the remaining tenants of the Bill of Rights and unleash upon America a total military dictatorship, complete with secret arrests, secret prisons, unlawful interrogations, indefinite detainment without ever being charged with a crime, the torture of Americans and even the “legitimate assassination” of U.S. citizens on right here on American soil!
If you have not yet woken up to the reality of the police state we’ve been warning you about, I hope you realize we are fast running out of time. Once this becomes law, you have no rights whatsoever in America — no due process, no First Amendment speech rights, no right to remain silent, nothing.”
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112%3AS.1867:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Authorization_Act

So its done, Chapter one is up on the web if you want to take a read. Let me know what you think, all feedback is welcome: like, hate, tell me why and what could I do to improve. Aslo check out the new vids, poems, and photos.

http://cfbrown.com/index_files/Page35076.htm

For Blackberry/Document to go users

Ive been trying to figure this out and there is no "tab" button and if you use the "indent" feature it indents the hole thing, so how do you indent the first line. Dont try and google it because there isnt really anything except for spreadsheets. this is what you do:

1. Go into 'edit mode' then go to the beginning of the first line, of the paragraph you want to indent
2. press the options button and go to format
3. go to paragraph (here you will get a list of for paragraph formatting)
4. scroll down to 'indent special' and there will be an option for 'first line'
5. after selecting 'indent special,first line' "indent special by" will appear
6. 'indent special by is where you tell the value of how far you want to indent. (0.5 is the equivalent of hitting the "tab button" once in word.

You would think as much as they charge you for this program they would just K.I.S and build in a Tab button or feature but now. So yeah this is how you do it

Eman On
I think I over did the canopy but I still am proud of this

Lovers
This one, OMG i could not take a good pic of this one for the life of me but today for some reason this one came. Still not the best pic but its post worthy

The Bridge
I really like this one I have to put it somewhere because I keep wanting to do stuff to it.

As always let me know what you think. Good or bad it all helps. Just be constructive

Dogflower

Just some things I did last night.

let me know what you think

(I might delete this because these pics did not come out the way I would have liked)

trees

eclipse of a toxic sun

so these are the latest  ones

let me know what you think

i call this one
mountains, clouds & water

sunset

For the past two, going on three weeks now I’ve been painting everyday. I just woke up and said to myself,

“I feel like painting.”

and I haven’t stopped.

Of course these are by no means professional. I gladly and proudly proclaim these amateur. ( Wrote a poem about the word amateur will post latter.)

These are all done in oil, and I am still searching for the perfect spot to take a proper picture that will properly translate what I painted. I have a lot more that I will post latter but for now these are the only pictures of the painting that I feel are acceptable.

ALL FEEDBACK IS WELCOME as long as it is constructive. If you think it sucks, tell me why. If you think its great, tell me why.

I call this one Chaos Kontrol

This  is Man

This is Woman.

This is either: Earth, Life, In-between the shades of Grey, or Shot of happiness. Haven’t made up my mind yet. 

This is High noon in the home land.

This is Monday.  :-)

This is Flesh tones or Shades

I haven’t titled this one yet.

Haven’t titled this one yet.

This is either The void is what you see or The Pessimist

Doing and Being are action words: verbs, meaning that an action is taking place, something is happening. When we who claim the name Christian Say we are Christians it means a totally separate thing than actively Being a Christian. Reading the word of God verses Doing what the word of God says is again two totally separate things, but equally the same as Saying you are a Christian and Being a Christian.

The Bible says in Matthew 7:24-25

“So everyone who hears these words of mine AND ACTS UPON THEM [obeying them] will be like a sensible (prudent, practical, wise) man who built his house upon the rock. 25 and when the rain fell, and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against the house it did not fall because it had been founded on the rock.”

The key here is “…AND ACTS UPON THEM.” “Acting upon them” is the catalyst for a spiritual bomb that a lot of Christians miss out on in their lives. You have the word by itself functioning in your life being highly potent and highly active, but without putting the word(s) into action; actively living the word, actively doing what the word says to do you miss out on the great explosion of spiritual: power, fruit, grace, mercy, blessing, ect that God intended and promised. Then we are left with the mere potential of what could and or might happen. This isn’t meant to be confused with the belief that works is what makes a person a Christian and allows entrance into heaven.

Faith and belief in Christ Jesus as the one and only Lord and savior is what allows entrance into heaven. Christian works (or what some people call the Christian thing to do) are supposed to be an identifiers of what a Christian is in this world, but somewhere along the way people came to think and then believe that the works that one does became grater and more important than the faith and name that one does them in. Martin Luther said,

“As works do not make a man a believer, so also they do not make him righteous, but as faith makes a man a believer and righteous, so faith does good works. Since, then, works justify no one; a man must be righteous before he does a good work.”

Martin Luther

Freedom of A Christian

So to be very clear I’m not talking about works in the place of faith but in addition to it.

If you read the scriptures it shows that works done in faith were always meant to be something that went together hand in hand with faith in Jesus Christ (faith in the salvation, life after death eternal, the kingdom of heaven) as the primary thing and the reason. The works done in Christ name were meant to be an outpour of the first going together with the second not the second being greater than the first. If you look at the some of the miracles that Jesus performed (the man with leprosy Matthew 8:2-3, The woman that touched the hem of his robe Matthew 9:20-22, and my favorite the Canaanite woman’s daughter Matthew 15:22-28) the first and foremost thing that they presented to Jesus or Jesus brought into question was their faith AND THEN the miracle (work) was preformed.

The Bible says in Ephesians 2:8-9

“For it is by Grace you have be save, through faith and this not from yourself. It is the gift of God. 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.”

The Amplified breaks it down to further clarity.

“For it is by free Grace (god unmerited favor) that you are saved. (delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ’s Salvation) through [your] faith. This [salvation] is not of yourself [of your own doing, it came not through your own striving] buy it is the free gift of God; 9 Not because of works [not the fulfillment of the law’s demands], least any man should boast. [it is not the result of what anyone can possibly do, so no one can pride himself in it or take glory to himself.]”

Basically there is NOTHING we could EVER do that would make us worthy enough to enter into heaven EXCEPT admitting that Jesus and Jesus alone is the only one that is truly worthy. Admitting that Jesus and Jesus alone did it all and by sacrificing himself in our place made us all worthy. If there was something that a man or woman could DO (except admitting that Jesus did it all) that could grant them access to heaven that would make Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection void and we would then be back under the law.

So what do I mean by a Doer of the word? Being a Christian rather than Saying you are Christian if nothing that would could do counts towards us getting into heaven?

The bible says in James 2:14-18 amp

“What is the use (profit) my brethren, for anyone to profess to have faith if he has no [good] works [to show for it] can such faith save his soul? 15 if a brother or sister is poorly clad and lacks food for each day 16 and one of you says to him Goodbye! Keep yourself warm and well fed without giving him the necessities for the body what good does that do? 17 So also faith if it does not have works (deeds and actions of obedience to back it up) by itself is destitute of power (inoperative, dead)”

We are Christ representatives on earth. We are emissaries of heaven and what I can only best describe as Christlikeness. As Christians we are to show all those that are not what is it to be a Christian; not just by our words but also with our actions. Our lives are to be the example; the walking, living, breathing example of the kingdom of heaven and what awaits them there. Our lives are to be the example to them; the walking, living, breathing example to them of the love that Jesus has shown and given to us. Not to say that we are Christ, but to show them what THEY CAN BE IN CHRIST and the love he also has for them.

The Bible says in Matthew 22:36-40 amp

“Teacher, which of the commandments is the greatest and most important? 37 And he replied to him. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great (most important, principle) and first commandment 39 AND you shall love your neighbor as you do yourself.”

What does that mean? Jesus says first and foremost, above all things LOVE GOD next LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOU WOULD YOURSELF.

Two important things here I think the original Greek helps bring into focus. First: the word for neighbor in Greek is πλησίον plēsion (play-see'-on) which means near, close by, neighbor. Webster’s New world college dictionary defines a neighbor: 1 a person who lives near another, 2 a person, country, or thing situated near another. 3 a fellow human being, 4 any person

What I’m getting at is that God was and is telling us to love our neighbor just as we would love ourselves. (which incidentally is why I believe the world and the devil tries so hard to get people into states of depression, doubt, self loathing, self consciousness, and self hatred because if you don’t love yourself how could you possible love anyone else but this is another topic for another day.) Who then is our neighbor? Yes the person that lives next door or across the street but also the person standing next to us in line, the co-worker that we don’t like (or doesn’t like us), and the homeless person that we walk or drive by. The neighbor that we are to love as we love ourselves is basically anyone and everyone that has breath and lives. We are called to love our neighbors (anyone and everyone) as we love ourselves meaning if we ourselves are cold and we love ourselves we would make ourselves warm so we are to do that for those that we see are cold. If we are hungry and we love ourselves we go eat, we are called to do the same for those we see whom are hungry. The mind blowing part of this is that the same type of love we are to love god first with is the same type of love we are to love ourselves and our neighbors (anyone and everyone) with.

The word in Greek used in the scripture Matthew 22:36-40 for love is ἀγαπάω agapaō

(ag-ap-ah'-o) which in simple terms means love, but the Greeks had and have many different words for love and you could say that this one is the king of them. agapaō is more than just emotional love, more that just love that involves feeling. You could feel like doing something one moment and then not feel like doing it the next. agapaō includes the emotional and feeling love but is not limited to them and goes way beyond them. agapaō includes willful intent. In murder cases willful intent is what separates first degree murder from accidental man slaughter. agapaō includes the feeling you feel when you love Christ and you feel him love you back but it goes past that into the willful intent to love and obey Christ when you don’t feel like doing so. The decision to continue to love Christ when everything thing around you is trying to lead you in a direction that is outside of that love.

It’s sort of like being married for some time and for a whole month straight; every morning and every night you and your partner fight. At the end of that month, that person that you think is kind of hot comes on to you. They let you know that they would not turn you down if you decided to make a move, yet you decided to go home to whatever might await you. The decision to continue to love your partner in spite of whatever else may be is just the door to gate at the outer border of agapaō, and is the love that Christ not only requires, but commands us to love him with but also love ourselves and everyone else with.

As Christians we are not under the law but if there was a law for Christians it would be to learn how to make the decision to really love (agapaō) God and then once we are fully in the middle of agapaō land and know the terrain inside and out we are then to put it in our hearts and show it to the world. Some people might still say what does this have to do with being a Christian and a doer of the word? As Christians we are to reflect the love of Jesus and heaven into the world. What God has given and shown to us we are then to give and show to the world.

I like to think of the function of a Christian as a telescope. When a person is not a Christian and they hear all the things that people say about God, and heaven, and all those things can be like looking up into the night sky. It’s pretty but its vastness and complexity to our eyes and our minds confounds our understanding. This is where the Christian telescope comes in. The way a basic telescope works is by reflection and focus. You point the telescope at something in the sky and the light and image is shone into a tube and at the back of that tube is a mirror. From there the light and image is then reflected, magnified, and focused onto a smaller mirror which in turn is the image we see when we look into the hole. (just a side note that I think is very interesting and says a lot. The larger the first mirror is at the back of the tube the more light it can take in and reflect there by giving a better and more focused, clearer, and detailed image.)

When you do Christian works it is not and should never in anyway be to magnify yourself, but to show the world the love, grace, and mercy that God has shown to you. When you help the homeless it is to show how God helped you. When you give freely (without seeking something in return) it is to show how God freely (without seeking something in return) gave to you. We should think of Christianity as a verb. Being a Christian is not some sedentary thing, being a Christian is supposed to be an active on going process. A doer of the word does not mean that you have to go out and find someway to martyr yourself, nor does it mean that you go out and do something just so that you can say,

“Look at what I did.”

In fact the bible says in Matthew 6:1-4amp

“Take care not to do your good deeds publicly or before men, in order to be seen by then; otherwise you will have no reward with and from your father who is in heaven.2 Thus, whenever you give to the poor do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites in the synagogues and in the streets like to do, that they be recognized and honored and praised by MEN. Truly I tell you they have their reward in full.3 But when you give to charity do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.4 So that your deeds of Charity my be in secret and your father who sees in secret will reward you OPENLY”

A doer of the word, being a Christian means actively doing and being for the purpose of reflecting Christ into the world. When you donate do it because it is what Christ has put upon and into your heart to do, NOT because everyone else is doing or because it will show everyone how much of a good Christian you are; like the scripture says you will have already received your reward.

Whatever you do in Jesus’ name do it with Jesus in mind. Do what you do with the fact, always repeating in your mind that the Love Jesus has for you and the love you have for him you are to show and give, with whatever it is that you do and give, with agapaō love. The very same love you share in the loving of Christ you are to also share that with your neighbor: the person, the country, the whatever that is right next to you, the person that you can and can not see or touch. Think how much better the world would be if everyone that SAID they were a Christian actually practiced BEING a Christian. If everyone that read and believed in the words in the Bible were actually DOERS of the words they believed in. I think Christian and Christianity would then stop being a noun, stop being a state of mind or label and become what Jesus always meant it to be a VERB, and it all starts with you and I that claim the name.

©Christopher F. Brown 2010