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 #354
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Self-Defense: Work the “Stairway to Heaven” 1-2-3 combo drill. Max power. Throw combo once with right side, twice with left side, three times with right, four left, five right, six left, etc. until you gas. Take a 30-second break and start again at one. Repeat until you reach “heaven.” See video on the right — this is one of our favorite drills. For some reason, this short has plenty of views but zero likes?!?! Feel free to suggest perhaps why that might me the case in the comments. Is it because I used the term “heaven” as a metaphor for “perfect exhaustion?” Who knows? Anyway, want to learn how to fight Rough ‘n’ Tumble style? Join the Heritage Self-Defense club in Richmond, VA. Or, if distance learning is your thing, click here to enroll in the Heritage Self-Defense distance learning program!
Fitness: Are you as fit as the founding fathers? Can you swim 3 1/2 miles or walk 20 miles? From the International Swimming Hall of Fame citation: “Benjamin Franklin was a competent swim coach and teacher; he advised on water safety, lifeboat rescue escape from shipwrecks, and the advisability of universal learn-to-swim classes…on a Thames River excursion in 1726, he swam from Chelsea to Blackfriars (3½ miles).” Thomas Jefferson was an early and lifelong advocate of 2 hours per day of mind-body-spirit exercise. In a letter dated August 1786 he wrote, “If the body be feeble, the mind will not be strong. The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is best. A horse gives but a kind of half exercise, and a carriage is no better than a cradle. No one knows, till he tries, how easily a habit of walking is acquired. A person who never walked three miles will in the course of a month become able to walk 15. or 20. without fatigue.” Want to start training “old-school?” Click here to sign up for our 100% free program!
Wildwood: Wild edibles are everywhere, even in suburbia. See the pics above or watch the video on the right. They are, from left to right, muscadine grape (Vitis rotundifolia), juniper berries (Juniperus virginiana), and blackberry leaf (Rubus L.). All are edible! I had a few minutes before Heritage Self-Defense session the other day, and I found all three right next to the picnic shelter. Want to learn more outdoor skills? Click here and sign up for the 100% free Heritage Wildwood distance learning program!
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Homily for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Sunday 5/7/23 – Archdeacon Mitch
Readings: Acts 6:1-7, Ps 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19, 1 Pt 2:4-9, Jn 14:1-12
John 14:1-12 World English Bible Catholic Edition
1 “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many homes. If it weren’t so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you. 3 If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also. 4 You know where I go, and you know the way.”
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you such a long time, and do you not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, ‘Show us the Father?’ 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I tell you, I speak not from myself; but the Father who lives in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me; or else believe me for the very works’ sake. 12 Most certainly I tell you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do greater works than these, because I am going to my Father.
In the passage prior to today’s reading (John 13:36-38), Jesus says to his apostles, “Where I am going, you can’t follow now, but you will follow afterwards.” Simon Peter says he will lay down his life in order to follow, but Jesus foretells that Simon will instead deny him three times.
This is why Jesus says in today’s reading, “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many homes.” Jesus is consoling Peter and the apostles for the mistakes he knows they are going to make. A home is a place to feel comfortable and safe. A home is a place of refuge for individuals and families. “In my Father’s house are many homes.” Pardon the pun, but this very much sounds like, “Don’t dwell on the past – dwell with Jesus and the Father in the home prepared for you. There’s plenty of room.”
Jesus warns Peter – he warns us! – that we’re going to stumble. In our reading from 1 Peter, we hear “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone, and a stone that will make people stumble, and a rock that will make them fall. They stumble by disobeying the word, as is their destiny.” Yes, we’re going to stumble. But there’s a home waiting for us. A home is a place of recuperation and rest after a long day of struggle, trial, tribulation, and hard work. After a lifetime of hard work trying to follow Jesus, after a lifetime of stumbling, fumbling, and failing, there is a home waiting for us where we can rest our weary bones.
Like Simon Peter, I have denied Jesus many times in my life. I have run from his truth, tried to justify my bad behavior, deliberately disobeyed his teachings, and so on. I cringe and shrink away from the memories of my misdeeds. We have all done this to one degree or the other. We can all, to a limited extent, imagine the guilt and shame Simon Peter must’ve felt after denying the Lord three times, only to meet his beloved Lord face to face after the resurrection.
As St. Augustine of Hippo said in his Confessions, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” So, not only is rest available to us in God’s house in the future, rest is available today if only we will stop running from God. We struggle, deny, and stumble. We fall. We get up again. On we go. But let us not be restless or troubled. Let us instead follow Jesus Christ and find our rest through him, with him and in him, today, tomorrow, and for eternity.