What’s the weekly mettle maker? Training tips and educational information in support of our free programs, that’s what! What’s mettle? According the American Heritage Dictionary, mettle is, “The ability to meet a challenge or persevere under demanding circumstances; determination or resolve.”
Mettle Maker #344
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Self-Defense: Next week is weapon week. Are you prepped to hit a real target as hard as you can with your chosen weapon or weapons? Just because sparring is good for hand-to-hand skills doesn’t mean that sparring with padded weapons is good for your weapon skills. Hands and feet are not deadly. Weapons are. Much of what makes weapons effective is that they cause serious pain and/or death. If you pad them up and spar, you begin to use them, and engage with them, in a manner that is unrealistic. You cease to fear them, and you cease to use them the way they should be used. Look at this way: If you are digging a hole, do you play around with the shovel? Or do you stand on the back of its spade and thrust it into the dirt as deeply as you can? If you’re driving a stake into the ground, or chopping wood, do you gently tap it with your sledge or axe, changing position frequently and striking hesitantly? Or do you hit it with all your worth and get it done? Full force and intent are the name of the game with real tools. Set up a forging post and hit it with your chosen edged weapon. Hang a heavy bag, and hit it with your sticks and other blunt weapons. Strike as hard as you can. Weapons are tools, not toys. Interested in a realistic and free self-defense program that includes empty hand techniques as well as weapons? Click here — did I mention it’s 100% free because we’re a 501(c)(3) charity?
Fitness and Wildwood combo: Do you have “spectatoritis?” In 1932, Jay B. Nash wrote his influential book Spectatoritis. Nash saw and felt the dawn of the industrial age, and his sought to address what he saw as the rise of time wasted in empty amusement rather invested in truly enriching and engaging activities. What do you suppose Nash would think if he saw what Americans did their time today? The poor fellow would die in a fit of apoplexy! Click here for more information on the so-called “Nash pyramid.” Anyway, stop and take an inventory. How much time do you spend each week in passive amusement, like watching TV, sports, and movies, playing video games, scrolling TikTok on your cell phone, and so forth? How much of that time could you convert to truly active pass-times? Looking for something worthwhile to do? Click here and sign up for one of our free programs!
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Homily for the First Sunday of Lent, Sunday 2/26/23 – Archdeacon Mitch
Readings: Gn 2:7-9; 3:1-7, Ps 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14 and 17, Rom 5:12-19, Mt 4:1-11
Mt 4:11 World English Bible Catholic Edition
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 When he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry afterward. 3 The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”
4 But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of God’s mouth.’ ”✡
5 Then the devil took him into the holy city. He set him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and,
‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you don’t dash your foot against a stone.’ ”✡
7 Jesus said to him, “Again, it is written, ‘You shall not test the Lord, your God.’ ”✡
8 Again, the devil took him to an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. 9 He said to him, “I will give you all of these things, if you will fall down and worship me.”
10 Then Jesus said to him, “Get behind me,* Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only.’ ” ✡
11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and served him.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus recapitulates the stories of Noah, and Moses, and the entire Hebrew people. Just as Noah captained his people through forty days of flood in the ark, and Moses shepherded his people through the forty years of the exodus from Egypt, Jesus is shepherding us through our lives by facing his forty days in the wilderness.
An adult life in biblical times was about forty years. For modern people it’s a bit longer, but still: over the course of our adult lives, we live out the story told here in Matthew, this eternal, ever-repeating journey. We weather the storms and flood waters of temptation right along with Noah and his family. We wander through the wilderness with Moses and the people. We walk in the wilderness with Jesus, and we are tempted.
Try as we might, we cannot transform stones to bread. That is, we cannot make material goods into things that nourish us. Only God can do that. When we rightly order our lives, putting him first and everything we do and possess in service to him and his purposes, our stones in a sense become bread. With God, our possessions become worthy, our food nourishes us to worthwhile activities, our entertainment is enriched, our money serves admirable purposes, and so on.
But if we think that even rightly ordered material goods are all we need to be fully nourished – nourished unto eternal life! – we’re kidding ourselves. “Man can’t live by bread alone.” The wealthy are often just as miserable as the poor and starving, suffering with family discord, depression, lack of fulfillment, and so on. And aren’t those in prison well-fed? Is bread all they need? Certainly it’s better to walk the straight and narrow, to work hard to feed ourselves so that we don’t starve. But if we think that we can nourish our hearts, minds, and souls just by striving for material nourishment, we’re doomed to unhappiness, starvation, and death – the spiritual death of separation from God.
Putting our faith in anything other than God, emotionally or physically, is like jumping from a high place and expecting to be caught. Maybe we rely on our government, leach from our parents, and borrow from our friends. Maybe we base our entire happiness on certain relationships, on our spouse or our kids. But all of those things will run its course and be gone in time. We have thrown ourselves off a high place and we are falling fast. The view is great and wind feels nice in our hair. But we are, as my mother used to say, “cruising for a bruising.” Sooner or later, when we’ve exploited every resource and there’s nothing left to hold onto, we’ll hit the ground. We’ll realize too late that our faith was misplaced, and that we tempted God.
The devil is a liar. Even if we worship him, we still might not get the rewards that the world has to offer. But if we worship God and God alone, we will, in the fullness of time, make it to dry land, reach the promised land, and share in the blessed hope of the resurrection.
✡4:4 Deuteronomy 8:3
✡4:6 Psalm 91:11-12
✡4:7 Deuteronomy 6:16
*4:10 TR and NU read “Go away” instead of “Get behind me”
✡4:10 Deuteronomy 6:13