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 #332
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Our Fifth Annual Mettlecraft Month is a wrap! For the full and complete wrap up go here for details. But the short version of the story is that we achieved success — all members of the Heritage Arts family faced the challenge, and at least one of us was able to beat it! It isn’t a contest. Mettlecraft Month is about facing down a tough challenge, both as a group and as individuals, and personal growth through self-assessment. Huzzah!
Fitness — Give the exercises in the video on the right a try. Three sets is all you need if you aim for perfect form. Do Pull-ups (max 3 x 8), Dragon Flags (max 3 x 8), and Stone Lifts (max of 3 x 3). If you don’t have stones (who does besides me?!?) substitute sandbag lifts or deadlifts. Don’t go to failure — stop on the rep just prior to technique breakdown. In other words, when you feel like, “I could do a couple more reps, but my technique might not be perfect.” Most injuries happen when form breaks down. Interested in a free fitness distance learning program? Check out our free programs here.
Self-Defense — have you read about Richard Fierro? He’s the army vet who swung into action and tackled the Club Q gunman. He said, “Listen, the little bouquet of flowers I got from a lady that I hadn't met and I lived next door to for 15 years, how about everybody this Thanksgiving, you know, find that hero around their table and do an action for somebody next to them? I think that will resonate. The people here, they're going to get supported. People are going to send them the things they need and they should. But how about we just, you know, make a hero at the dinner table for Thanksgiving.” Read or listen to the entire article here. Interested in learning self-defense? Sign up for one of our free distance learning program.
Wildwood —John the Baptist, survival expert. Seriously, this guy makes Bear Grylls, Cody Lundin, Les Stroud, and all the rest look like suburban softies. Read my homily for today (see below) and you’ll see what I mean. Looking for an outdoor skills program? Click here to sign up for the free Wildwood nature appreciation and survival distance learning program.
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Homily for the Second Day of Advent, Dec. 4th, 2022 – Archdeacon Mitch
Readings: Is 11:1-10, Ps 72:1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17, Rom 15:4-9, Mt 3:1-12
Matthew 3:1-12 World English Bible Catholic Edition
1 In those days, John the Baptizer came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, 2 “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” 3 For this is he who was spoken of by Isaiah the prophet, saying,
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
make the way of the Lord ready!
Make his paths straight!”✡
4 Now John himself wore clothing made of camel’s hair with a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then people from Jerusalem, all of Judea, and all the region around the Jordan went out to him. 6 They were baptized by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins.
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for his baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore produce fruit worthy of repentance! 9 Don’t think to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. 10 Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is cut down, and cast into the fire.
11 “I indeed baptize you in water for repentance, but he who comes after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit.* 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly cleanse his threshing floor. He will gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn up with unquenchable fire.”
✡ 3:3 Isaiah 40:3
Surviving in the desert alone makes even the most hardened survival experts quake in their boots. The level of precision, calmness, discipline, and wisdom that it takes for to survive alone in the desert – the most desolate environment on earth – is staggering. The landscape is dizzyingly desolate. There are no landmarks you can use to find your way. And getting lost is doubly dangerous there, because nourishment and water are both incredibly scarce. Every step you take, every calorie of energy you burn and teaspoon of water you lose through perspiration, could be the difference between life and death. I once spent several days at a survival school in the high deserts of Utah. There were three dozen people in the camp and several survival instructors there. Even so, I felt raw, exposed, and in real danger.
So what kind of man is this John the Baptist, this prophet wearing skins of camel hide, surviving on locusts and honey? He’s wearing camel hide because the camel, one of the most resilient desert animals in the world, has died in the sand. But John has survived. He has skinned that camel and fashioned its hide into a garment to protect him from the stings of bees so that he can eat honey from the comb. He is tough – tougher than anyone you and I ever met by far and away.
Not just physically tough, but mentally tough. In the desert there is no wood for campfires. I’m a survival teacher, as many of you know, and I can tell you firsthand that the first time you spend a night alone in the middle of nowhere without a campfire, the darkness of the nighttime world collapses in on you. Every sound makes you jump. You cannot relax. If you are in the woods, all you can do is obsess about an approaching bear you cannot see, or think about the silent, deadly ticks you cannot feel or see that are drinking your blood. When you are in the desert, all you do is think about are the snakes and scorpions that are crawling up around you to steal your warmth.
But, once you acclimate and overcome your fears, you get to see and experience things others have not. You get to watch the moon rising slow and clear, illuminating the world around you. Sitting still in a moonlit clearing without a fire, I have had fox walk right up to me, nose to nose, and give me a curious sniff. In the desert, at night, far away from the lights of the city, you get a view of the sky you can get nowhere else. The first night I spent in the desert, I lay on my back and looked upward. The depth of the perspective was so breathtaking that it triggered my fear of heights. I felt as though I was going to fall upward into a limitless heaven filled with stars.
Again – who is John the Baptist? He’s tough, resilient, careful, precise, wise, and completely unafraid. He makes puny, pampered people like you and me – and the city folks who come out into the desert to be baptized! – look like mere babes in diapers. And guess what? Jesus, just as John did, went into the desert. For forty days and forty nights, he confronted his human fears, fought the devil, and returned home alive.
So, when these men speak, people listen. When John the Baptist tells you that you need to take a hard look at yourself and get yourself straightened out, you respectfully shut your mouth and listen. That this why the people of their day listened to these men, and it is why we should listen to them as well. Because they speak as those who have authority, not as the scribes and Pharisees (Mark 1:22). They have braved the dangers few of us will ever face, and seen the sights few of us will ever see.