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What’s the weekly mettle maker?
Training tips and educational info in support of our free programs, that’s what! What’s mettle? Mettle is, “The ability to meet a challenge or persevere under demanding circumstances; determination or resolve.”
Mettle maker #435: Deserts, Disciplines, and the “CNL”
Mettlecraft Month is officially a wrap, December is here, and it’s time to get back to normal in terms of our martial arts and fitness training. Let’s get started with a reminder:
If you ain’t doin’ two constitutionals a week, you ain’t doin’ Heritage Rough ‘n’ Tumble.
Look, some folks call me “Father” as a polite honorific I suppose, but I’m not your actual dad, so I can’t order you around (and I wouldn’t even if I was). But if you don’t do two constitutionals a week, you’re not doing HRnT. In my training journal, I write “CNL” for short. You can do more fitness than just two CNLs per week. You layer on weights, running, rock climbing, whatever floats your boat — or nothing at all. Whatever you want. Personally, I suggest adding in old-school stuff, like harder calisthenics, sandbags, Indian clubs, light dumbbells, walking, hiking, real life adventures, and real life chore work. But as the kids are saying, “you do you.”
One more thing: December is Spirit Month, during which we always engage in some kind of special activity related one of the eight spiritual disciplines. This year we’re embodying service by donating money, food, and time to FeedMore, an esteemed Virginia charity providing food to folks who are hungry. Click here to make a donation.
If you haven’t done so already, consider signing up for a totally free mind-body-spirit program that incorporates self-defense, fitness, outdoor skills, and spiritual development — sign up for our free Rough ‘n’ Tumble Distance Learning Program!
Holy Eucharist is LIVE on YouTube every Sunday at 10 am EASTERn. Click HERE to watch live. To view and print a copy of the program for holy Eucharist, CLICK HERE.
Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent 12/8/24 – Father Mitch
Readings: Bar 5:1-9, Ps 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6, Phil 1:4-6, 8-11, Lk 3:1-6
Luke 3:1-6 World English Bible
1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2 during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. 3 He came into all the region around the Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for remission of sins. 4 As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
‘Make ready the way of the Lord.
Make his paths straight.
5 Every valley will be filled.
Every mountain and hill will be brought low.
The crooked will become straight,
and the rough ways smooth.
6 All flesh will see God’s salvation.’ ”*
The path of every man leads through deserts and wildernesses. Some deserts are literal, such as soldiers who return from foreign lands carrying the burden of physical or psychological injuries. Some deserts are more metaphorical – periods of joblessness, sickness, mental illness, grief, loneliness, anxiety, turmoil, doubt, loss of faith, and so on. The worst deserts, it seems, are the ones of our own making – the horrible situations we create through our own mistakes. Because if we learn anything at all from them, these desert sands are made even more harsh by guilt and shame.
But, in the words of the great explorer, author, pilot, and war hero Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, “What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” There is reason to see beauty and rejoice, even in the desert. Because, deep beneath the sand there is an untapped aquifer. Underneath the dried-up river bed, or inside a pile of stones, there is a cool puddle. Somewhere over the next hill, there is an oasis with fruit, shade, and swaying trees. And, here in our gospel reading today, into the desert there comes a voice proclaiming how to find and tap into that water. There comes a voice announcing that there is a way out.
But here’s the thing; we can’t rely on the navigator who steered us into the desert. It doesn’t matter if that navigator is you, me, someone else, or just a bad set of circumstances. What got us there can’t relieve our thirst or get us home. There’s only one way to find the water, and only one path out. In John 3:3-8 Jesus said, “unless one is born of water and Spirit, he can’t enter into God’s Kingdom…‘You must be born anew.’…The wind blows where it wants to, and you hear its sound, but don’t know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Listen: “the wind blows where it wants to.” The word for “wind” in the Greek is pneuma, which also means “spirit.” The wind – the Holy Spirit – is invisible, it goes where it goes, and often we aren’t going to understand the why, where, and how. We must follow wherever it leads.
In other words, we can’t do what we want. We have to do what God wants.
Let us then, brothers and sisters, listen to the words of Isaiah as proclaimed by John the Baptist. “Make ready the way of the Lord.” Let’s always be ready to do it God’s way. “Make his paths straight.” Let’s get his path straight in our hearts and minds and try to keep it that way. And if we do that, we will find our way out – perhaps in this life, but with complete certainly in the next. For “every valley will be filled. Every mountain and hill will be brought low. The crooked will become straight, and the rough ways smooth. All flesh will see God’s salvation.”
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* 3:6 Isaiah 40:3-5