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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.” Want to cultivate your rough ‘n’ tumble mettle? Complete one of our 100 Feats!
Mettle maker #469: Hoarding Stuff
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Millions of martial arts videos get viewed on YouTube each day. Aside from Hatmaker’s of course, one of my favorite YouTube channels is Jesse Enkamp’s Karate by Jesse. Hatmaker gives practical, direct, non0-nonense information. Enkamp is humble and funny and trains with fascinating people. But do we really learn anything from watching these videos? Or are we just wasting our time? For that matter, I own hundreds of martial arts DVDs and books. How much have I really learned from them?
The answers to these questions are not in quantity but in quality. It’s not about how much we watch. It’s about discernment — how selective we are in what we watch and how we practice what we perceive.
Each month I get a training DVD from my martial arts coach Mark Hatmaker. It’s like drinking from a firehouse. If I spent five minutes a day practicing what’s contained in each of the 100+ DVDs I’ve received from him over the years, I’d be training 500 minutes/day — that’s over 8 hours/day. Preposterous!
What we have to do is select the learnings that matter and add or modify our programs and approaches accordingly. Sometimes what we learn isn’t technical. We might learn, for example, a better way to train in general, a better schema, or training structure. Or we might just catch a spur to our flanks that gets us off the sofa and into the gym.
We need not hoard martial arts DVDs, books, or watch hours. That’s just idle vanity, laziness, wasted time. Passivity is anathema; engagement and discernment is the secret sauce. When you watch a video, pay attention. Pluck out a learning — a new or better technique, a better approach, an improved methodology, or what-have-you. And then really train it.
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Homily for the Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time 8/3/25 – Father Mitch
Readings: Ecclesiastes 1:2; 2:21-23, Psalm 90:3-17, Colossians 3:1-5, 9-11, Luke 12:13-21
Luke 12:13-21 World English Bible
13 One of the multitude said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”
14 But he said to him, “Man, who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” 15 He said to them, “Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness, for a man’s life doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things which he possesses.”
16 He spoke a parable to them, saying, “The ground of a certain rich man produced abundantly. 17 He reasoned within himself, saying, ‘What will I do, because I don’t have room to store my crops?’ 18 He said, ‘This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns, build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 I will tell my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” ’
20 “But God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared—whose will they be?’ 21 So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
We have developed over time a great slang word: “stuff.” Nowadays we use the word “stuff” to refer not to just material goods, as in “get your hands off my stuff!” but also to refer to the immaterial, as in “I’m going through some stuff right now” or when we open a tough awkward conversation with “we need talk about this stuff.”
Today’s readings are about our “stuff.” Yes, our material goods, but also about the other stuff that we lay up and hoard in our storehouses. Even a monk, who lives a life of austerity and has no material possessions beyond a few books and a few changes of clothes, can be a hoarder of a kind of wealth. What if he reads voraciously from the library, thinking that somehow his vast storehouse of knowledge will profit him? Isn’t this a vain attempt to lay up treasure of a certain sort?
When I examine myself for this tendency, I do not see it with regard to money and material possessions as much as I do with achievements. I have been, and still am on bad days, a hoarder of accolades, accomplishments, and feats. I sometimes catch myself thinking about my legacy, deluding myself into thinking that my accomplishments are a golden heirloom that I will bequeath to my descendants. I imagine my surviving family saying, “I wish you could’ve known my father. He was incredible!” or “Did you know my granddad did amazing stuff? Check this out!” How vain and self-aggrandizing this is!
In centered moments I come to myself and see that I am being foolish in allowing this to go to excess. It’s necessary and good to set a positive example for our children and grandchildren, for our friends and neighbors. But greed for achievements and accolades – greed for anything – is a type of idolatry. As St. Paul says in our reading from Colossians, “Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry” (Col 3:5).
Just as plentiful food and shelter are necessary for a healthy body and a positive home life, cultural nourishments like arts and entertainment, sports, manufacturing, commerce, academics, philosophy, science, politics, and so on are necessary for a healthy society. Striving for excellence rather than mediocrity in the cultural domain is also good. But when we begin hyperfocus on the treasures that these domains provide, and we begin to amass quantities of all this “worldly stuff” we stray away from the God-centeredness.
Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matt 5:3). Let us not hoard any of our various “stuff” and strive always to be “rich toward God” (Luke 12:21).