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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.”

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Our program is now called HERITAGE ROUGH ‘N’ TUMBLE. To understand why we’ve made this change, read this post .
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Mettle maker #422: Action Mindset

Last week we talked about getting in gear. We asked if you, or anyone you know, was given to putting things off until the conditions were absolutely perfect before taking action. News Flash: most of the time what happens is that you never take action. You just think about it.

Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt famously said, “Do what you can, where you are, with what you’ve got.” I’ve tried, over the last three years or so since my heart attack, to really internalize that mindset. It really changed the game.

I respectfully suggest that you should not wait until you are over 60 years old and a heart attack survivor to confront your dwindling lifespan and lack of sincere initiative.

Watch the video "Action Mindset” and get in gear.

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Homily for the Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, 9/8/24 – Father Mitch

Readings: Is 35:4-7a, Ps 146:6-7, 8-9, 9-10, Jas 2:1-5, Mk 7:31-37

Mark 7:31-37 World English Bible

Again Jesus departed from the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and came to the sea of Galilee through the middle of the region of Decapolis. 32 They brought to him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech. They begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 He took him aside from the multitude privately and put his fingers into his ears; and he spat and touched his tongue. 34 Looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said to him, “Ephphatha!” that is, “Be opened!” 35 Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was released, and he spoke clearly. 36 He commanded them that they should tell no one, but the more he commanded them, so much the more widely they proclaimed it. 37 They were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He makes even the deaf hear and the mute speak!”

In today’s reading, Jesus’ path of evangelism takes him right through the federation of city states known as the Decapolis or “ten cities.” They were all majority gentile in their religious observance, an amalgam of various pagan persuasions – worshipping either the gods of the Greeks, Romans, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hittites, or Babylonians – planetary gods like Sin (the Moon), Shamash (the Sun), Marduk (Jupiter), Ishtar (Venus), and so on. Syncretism – the blending of various beliefs and practices – was the norm there.

So, in essence, Jesus’ evangelistic path is very much like ours. Every person he met might well have had a completely different belief system than the last. The same is true for us, especially among the youth of today. What we encounter more and more these days is a mishmash of vague superstitions – a stew of crystal healing, pop psychology, and astrology, seasoned with a little bit of sympathetic magic and spiced with some watered-down Buddhism and a dash of Hindu karma.

Talking to someone who is trapped in this mindset feels like talking to someone who is deaf and has a speech impediment. They seem to have difficulty hearing the things we are saying. And when they reply, it is often very hard to understand. If you are like me and have personally suffered from this deafness to the Word of God, it’s much easier to talk to and understand these people. In other words, it’s easier to understand what’s blocking their ears if your own ears have also been blocked.

What is the blockage? What do all of these diverse beliefs have in common? The person says to himself,

· “If I buy this crystal and put it on my body, I can improve my health.”

· “I can use astrological star charts to understand my past and reveal my future.”

· “If I smudge my house with sage I clear away my anxiety and negativity.”

· “If I put this statue of Buddha in my bedroom and burn incense in front of it, it’ll bring me peace and strength.”

All of these wasted efforts – all of these ear blockages – start with “I”. I can fix my problems. I can heal myself. I control my fate. When we think this way we cannot hear God. Our ears are blocked. It still happens to me sometimes. Things don’t go according to my plan, and so I keep pushing harder for personal control instead of praying to God for a better way to get things done that is in accordance with his will rather than my own.

Do we have agency in the world? Of course. Can we make choices and take actions that help us realize our goals and achieve great things? Definitely. We are nowhere near being just so much flotsam and jetsam flowing down the river of time. Our actions certainly matter.

But only if we put our faith in God and cooperate with him can we realize our destinies. Nothing happens unless God wills it to be so. Fate is the ultimate, unavoidable end. We have no input in that, none whatsoever. But destiny? Destiny is the purpose God put us on this earth to realize. And faith in pseudoscience and superstitious gimmicks, and insisting that we can get things done without God, only prevents us from listening to God and collaborating with him. Over a dozen times in the New Testament Jesus says, “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!”

Let us unclog our ears and listen.