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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 #475: Balance
The picture on the left was taken by a remarkable friend of mine. It’s a photo of Tripod Rock near Pyramid Mountain in NJ. Utterly bizarre how this glacial stone has managed to stay perfectly balanced for millennia.
What does this have to do with Heritage Arts?
Around here we practice full-context martial arts. We’re all about health of mind, body, and spirit. When you expand your horizons, and go for hikes and whatnot, you get to see amazing things. Amazing things enrich you. Activities strengthen you. Diets and lives should be well balanced.
I’ve been hollerin’ down the rain on this topic for a long time, and I won’t stop. Doing martial arts in a vacuum or to the exclusion of all else, without regard for health, until you’ve got pugilistic dementia, hip replacements, and a bad back is not smart or well balanced. Doing martial arts until you’re paranoid, obsessed, or myopic isn’t good either. Martial arts should make you a better person all the time.
Here are some suggested activities that would augment, broaden, and enrich your martial arts practice:
Survival training. Self-defense is more than wrestling and fisticuffs. Learn some outdoor skills, wild plant identification, and so on. Hike with a backpack. Learn some knots and some navigation. Outdoor activities are great for your mental and physical health.
Movement drills. Crawl, climb, scramble, swim, sprint, swing, hang, jump, and scamper. Take long walks. How does it get any more practical?.
Heavy Carries. Bear hug, farmer walks, suitcase carries, waiter walks, and so on are great for functional strength.
Chores. Swinging hammers, digging holes, raking leaves, hoeing weeds, painting, pushing mowers, hauling, scrubbing, and so on are all great for your mind, body, and soul.
Old-school fitness. Indian clubs, light dumbbells, deep breathing exercises, old-time calisthenics, pedestrianism, light gymnastics, etc.
Church. Martial arts without a moral compass are dangerous. Religion is the way human beings promote and instill morality, and religion in the Western World means going to church. Get there.
Got more ideas to share? Share them in the comments, please!
Where do you start? Signing up for the Heritage Arts distance learning program!
In other news, the new t-shirts are in. If you want to make a donation to the charity, we can definitely get you one! Just click here.
Holy Eucharist is not LIVE this week — fr. mitch is traveling. Here is a recording of today’s service.
Homily for the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross 9/14/25 – Father Mitch
Readings: Numbers 21:4b-9, Psalm 78:1bc-2, 34-35, 36-37, 38, Philippians 2:6-11, John 3:13-17
John 3:13-17 World English Bible
No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended out of heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven. 14 As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only born§ Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God didn’t send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through him.
The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross commemorates the finding of the True Cross by Saint Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, on the 14th of September in the year 320. Originally there was on this day a Feast of the Finding, but in the 8th century this was moved to May, and September 14th became the celebration of the Feast of Exaltation of the Cross.
On this day we also remember the dedication of the churches built by Emperor Constantine on the site of the Holy Sepulchre and Mount Calvary, as well as the elevation of the True Cross at Hagia Sophia in Constantinople in AD 629. The Holy Cross relic had been stolen by Persian Emperor Chosroes II during the conquest of Jerusalem in 614 AD, but was recovered after the defeat of the Persians by Byzantine emperor Heraclius and publicly displayed by him at that time. Fragments of the True Cross relic were distributed across the empire and by the turn of the 5th century and rest in reliquaries all over the world, venerated by the faithful all over the world.
Of the Holy Cross, St. John Chrysostom said,
“How great is the power of the Cross! How great is the change made by it in the human race! How from the deep darkness it has led us to the boundless light, from death it has restored us to eternal life, from corruption it has transferred us to incorruption. What good is not accomplished for us by means of the Cross? Through the Cross we learned piety and learned the properties of the Divine essence. Through the Cross we learn the truth about God, through the Cross we who were far from Him are united to Christ, and we become worthy of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Through the Cross we learn the power of love and we are taught to die for others. Through the Cross we are scorned and all that we do is not temporal, we search the blessings of the future and we accept the invisible as if seen. The Cross is preached, and the faith in God is confessed, His truth is spread throughout the universe. The Cross is preached, and the faith in the resurrection, the life and the kingdom of heaven is made without a doubt. What is more precious than the Cross and what is more saving for the soul? The Cross is the triumph over demons, the armor against sin and the sword with which the Lord has struck the snake. The Cross is the will of the Father, the glory of the Only-begotten, the joy of the Holy Spirit, the ornament of angels, the protection of the Church, the praise of St. Paul, the protection of the Saints, the lamp of all the world.”
Let us rejoice in the Exaltation of the Holy Cross!
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§3:16 The phrase “only born” is from the Greek word “μονογενη”, which is sometimes translated “only begotten” or “one and only”