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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 #430: Mettlecraft Month 2024 Week 1
At Heritage Rough ‘n’ Tumble, November is always Mettlecraft Month! This year we’re going to face self-defense and rescue readiness tests, punctuated by extra fitness challenges — new challenges every week. At the club in Richmond, VA, each week we’re going face 7 challenges together and (if desired) a bonus challenge as homework.
DISTANCE LEARNERS and FRIENDS are encouraged to FACE THE CHALLENGES SOLO! Follow along — SHARE LINKS to videos and blogs — play the HOME GAME!
These challenges have been compiled from a variety of sources. They come from either Mark Hatmaker’s Black Box Program, various armed forces readiness tests, Native American traditions, survival exams, and so on.
They are not competive. Don't keep score. The goal of these tests is simply to self-assess — to disabuse yourself of misconceptions and become aware of your actual capabilities.
WEEK 1
Run at top speed for 200 yards without stopping.
Jump or vault waist high.
Hold your breath for 1 minute (max 5 second prep). Simulates boat or vehicle crash in water.
1 minute rope hang for self-rescue.
Fireman’s Carry an adult 25 yards
Ice water plunge pain test. Submerge arm and hand in ice water — hold it for 3 minutes — no longer! — and you’re good to go.
Apache run. Fill mouth with water and run at least 1/2 mile (1 mile if possible) without spitting or swallowing. This is a composure test. Many report feeling like they are going to panic, suffocate, or choke.
Bonus Homework: Nonconformity Test. In a busy, populous location, such as in a shopping mall, grocery store, or public park, spontaneously lay down on your back and look up at the ceiling. If people come and ask if you’re okay, say “Yeah, I’m fine, I just decided to see what things look like from down here.” Stay there for exactly one minute, no matter how awkward you feel. Being a good and moral person, as well as being able to take action to defend oneself and others, sometimes requires the ability to refuse to conform. We need to be able to stand up for what’s right, and take action, even when people might think we are loopy, and/or everyone else is “going with the flow.”
If this week’s mettle maker is fun, 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 Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time, 11/3/24 – Father Mitch
Readings: Dt 6:2-6, Ps 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51, Heb 7:23-28, Mk 12:28b-34
Mark 12:28b-34 World English Bible
One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, “Which commandment is the greatest of all?”
29 Jesus answered, “The greatest is: ‘Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’* This is the first commandment. 31 The second is like this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’* There is no other commandment greater than these.”
32 The scribe said to him, “Truly, teacher, you have said well that he is one, and there is none other but he; 33 and to love him with all the heart, with all the understanding, all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34 When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from God’s Kingdom.”
In today’s gospel reading, Jesus tells the scribe who answered wisely concerning the greatest commandment, “You re not far from the Kingdom of God.” What do we mean when we use the term, “Kingdom of God” or refer to “God’s Kingdom?” Around the year 233 AD, some 1,800 years ago, the church father Origen, quoting the Lord’s Prayer and Luke 17:20-21, said,
“According to the word of our Lord and Savior, the Kingdom of God does not come observably, nor shall men say ‘Lo it is here’, or ‘Lo is it there’, but the Kingdom of God is within us; for the utterance is exceedingly near in our mouth and in our heart. It is therefore plain that he who prays for the coming of the kingdom of God prays with good reason for rising and fruit bearing and perfecting of God’s kingdom within him.”
The idea that Origen is laying out, that the Kingdom is a state of mind or a condition of the heart, is born out by many parables, such as the growing seed (Mark 4:26, Matthew 21:43), the mustard seed, the yeast, and so on. At the same time, it’s clear that there is a literal element to the term “Kingdom of God” (or “Kingdom of Heaven” in the Gospel of Matthew). John the Baptist seems to proclaim an immanently arriving set of physical circumstances, as does Jesus himself in Mark 1:15 when he proclaims, “The time is fulfilled, and God’s Kingdom is at hand! Repent, and believe in the Good News.” Jesus seems also to be speaking of a future time and place when he says, “Most certainly I tell you, I will no more drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in God’s Kingdom.” (Mark 14:25). Clearly the thief beside Jesus at the Crucifixion was thinking of a concrete place and time when he said, "Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom."
What emerges is a definition of the Kingdom that is extremely nuanced and complex. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910,
“It is only by realizing these shades of meaning that we can do justice to the parables of the kingdom with their endless variety…The kingdom of God means, then, the ruling of God in our hearts; it means those principles which separate us off from the kingdom of the world and the devil; it means the benign sway of grace; it means the Church as that Divine institution whereby we may make sure of attaining the spirit of Christ and so win that ultimate kingdom of God Where He reigns without end in "the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God" (Revelation 21:2).”¹
In the final analysis, perhaps we should regard the Kingdom as something so transcendent that it cannot be apprehended by merely mortal conceptual, intellectual, and cognitive abilities.
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* 12:26 Exodus 3:6
* 12:30 Deuteronomy 6:4-5
* 12:31 Leviticus 19:18
¹ Pope, H. (1910). Kingdom of God. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08646a.htm