What’s the “weekly mettle maker?”

Training ideas and info supporting Heritage Arts’ programs — Heritage Self-Defense, Wildwood outdoor skills, Heritage Fitness, and Heritage Spirit.

Mettlecraft Month 2022 is coming 11/1/22!

"Die before you Die. There is no chance after." (C. S. Lewis)

Soon it will be November and time for our Fifth Annual Mettlecraft Month at Heritage Self-Defense! This year’s challenge is a delightful little constitutional called “#86.” What’s a constitutional, you ask? It’s 7 calisthenics exercises done consecutively. And why is this one called #86? What are the exercises? Get real! This is just a teaser! Watch this bog for more info!

Mettle Maker #326

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Self-defense and fitness combo — 5 minutes of Bear Walks. Set a timer for 5 minutes and Bear Walk as far as you can. You should be able to get about 200 yards in that period of time. This kind of functional strength and fitness will serve you well (especially when wrestling). I always tell people, if you don’t know what to do for fitness, do Push-ups, Squats, or Bear Walks. Get there.

Want more fitness and more martial arts programming? Check out our free programs here.

Wildwood — Gathering your nuts for winter. If it hadn’t been for acorns, the indigenous people of Virginia would’ve probably starved to death. According to the early writers, and confirmed by Helen Rountree in her book The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: Their Traditional Culture, by the time settlers came to Virginia in 1607, the state was so overhunted that there wasn’t a deer east of the fall line. “The Powhatans,” she writes on p.87, “solved the problem of hunted-out territory from year-to-year by organizing large-scale hunts near the fall line in winter, after the crops were in and the thanksgiving festivities had concluded.” To eat acorns, the tannins must be removed by boiling or leaching. Some tribes boiled de-shelled acorns and skimmed off the oil, which they would use much the way we use butter today, or as an emollient. The nut meats would be dried, ground into meal, and eaten like grits. Some tribes put the nutmeats into baskets, which they submerged in streams to leach out the tannins. We’ll be putting together a video of acorn processing and cooking — watch the YouTube channel for updates! Want to learn more about nature appreciation and survival? Sign up for one of our free distance learning programs.

Homily for the 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Oct. 9th, 2022 – Archdeacon Mitch

Readings: Sir 35:12-14, 16-18, Ps 34:2-3, 17-18, 19, 23, 2 Tm 4:6-8, 16-18, Lk 18:9-14

Luke 18:9-14 World English Bible

9 He also spoke this parable to certain people who were convinced of their own righteousness, and who despised all others: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood and prayed by himself like this: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men: extortionists, unrighteous, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far away, wouldn’t even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." These immortal words of prayer from today’s Gospel reading, echo up and down the centuries. In the Orthodox tradition, this is often called the “Jesus Prayer,” it is believed to be the unceasing prayer encouraged by St. Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (“Pray without ceasing”). It central to the ascetic Orthodox practice of both monks and lay people known as hesychasm or “stillness.”

It is also esteemed in the Roman Catholic Church. According to Catechism 2667.

“This simple invocation of faith developed in the tradition of prayer under many forms in East and West. the most usual formulation, transmitted by the spiritual writers of the Sinai, Syria, and Mt. Athos, is the invocation, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners." It combines the Christological hymn of Philippians 2:6-11 with the cry of the publican and the blind men begging for light.18 By it the heart is opened to human wretchedness and the Savior's mercy.”

The Jesus Prayer also shows up in the Anglican Rosary, and is sometimes called “The Sinner’s Prayer” by Evangelical Christians.

Why is it that these words have had such far-reaching, and long-lasting impact? What is it about this story – about the contrast between the Pharisee and the tax collector – that’s so important? Perhaps it is because self-righteousness is so toxic and because humility, its opposite, is so powerful. Self-righteousness is toxic to our souls. When we begin to think that we’ve arrived, that we have no more work to do, our growth stops. When we begin to think that we are better than our neighbors, this is the slippery slope that begins with condescension and eventually ends in spite and hatred – the opposite of loving one’s neighbor.

Self-righteousness is also poisonous to the spreading of our faith to the spiritually starved who are in want. The foremost complaint I hear about Christians in the course of my evangelization work is that Christians are self-righteous jerks. They say that we Christians think we have all the answers. They say that we think we are saved and everyone else is damned, and nobody wants to spend time holier-than-thou braggarts. It’s one thing to harm our own growth and development, but poisoning the well of evangelization compounds the sin.

Humility – the opposite of self-righteousness – has the opposite effect. Humility is the fuel of the way of Christ that accelerates our own development and improves our evangelization efforts. This is why, when we say the Confiteor and confess our sins, that we rap our breasts with our knuckles as the tax collector beats his breast and beg for mercy. This confession and prayer for mercy is merely the beginning.