This will take about twenty minutes to work through:
http://www.quietbay.net/Science/astronomy/nightsky/
It is really great. You actually learn three constellations, two stars, and one planet as well as how to navigate with them. Great stuff…lots of fun and may be useful someday.
 
Yesterday, I had the privelege of hosting and refereeing a set of dodgeball games with the Quest program.
In conversation with Cpt. Menzel afterwards, we discussed why Dodgeball—and other intense, rough games—are good for boys.
They bring out testosterone.
I know a lot of moms out there think this is a bad idea. I disagree. Our men need to be manly men, and our boys need to be manly boys. When young men are coddled and raised to be effeminate, gentle creatures, they are emasculated of their God-given drives to be manly. Many mothers are ultimately destroying their boys by raising them to avoid conflict, to avoid fighting, to avoid testosterone. Of course, there needs to be balance—young men need to understand how to be gentleman, how to use their drives to protect the weak.
They Create Competition
Men need to compete. They need to be self-driven. Games like dodgeball and activities like wrestling encourage this healthy competition.
They Promote Endurance
When you get smacked in the face by a dodgeball going ninety miles an hour, it hurts! It may even leave a mark! But pain is good. Injury isn’t, pain is. Pain motivates growth, and self-willingly enduring pain increases self-control in other areas of life as well.
This morning at 5:45 am, I was leading a PT session in which we were doing forward lunges up and down Heartbreak Hill (a long, steep hill next to our dorms) and holding positions like the “Flaming Chariot” (a sort of squat with your arms held out). It hurt. It really hurt. Our thighs felt like they were on fire.
I encouraged the guys to realize that “Pain is good. Pain is weakness leaving the body.” (to quote the USMC). I also told them, “Don’t give up! Don’t give in! Don’t give in! If you give in now, if you give in on the PT field, you will give in when you’re home alone surfing the internet. If you give in now, you will give in when you see an immodest magazine. Don’t give in! Don’t give in!” Of course, you have to picture me screaming this, as we were in mind-numbing pain at this point.
But it bears remembering that self-discipline, endurance, in physical activities will transfer to unrelated areas in our lives. By getting up early, or forcing myself to take freezing showers, I build my willpower and increase my ability to fight sin.
Play Hard Games!
So, in a nod to The Rebelution: Play Hard Games! As men, we need to get hurt. We need to push through the pain. We need to be encouraged to have the intestinal fortitude necessary to be manly men.
In an undisclosed region of Iraq, Air Force Staff Sgt. Earl I. Covel of Oregon was assigned to work with a small group of Army Special Forces soldiers and indigenous Kurdish fighters, when the safe house that Covel and his men were staying in came under a vicious attack.
Covel, the tactical air controller, made his way to the rooftop of a nearby building where he set up communications with air support while pointing out targets to his team. The soldier who was providing Covel cover fire as he coordinated the attack was shot and evacuated, with Covel left in a “little corner of hell” as he later described it. Covel continued to coordinate air and ground strikes for the next 36 hours, all the time returning enemy fire. Through it all, not one of Covel’s men was killed, though more than 100 insurgents were taken down. Later, it wasfound that approximately 200 insurgents were part of the large-scale assault.
At the recommendation of the Army soldiers with whom he served, Covel was recently awarded the Silver Star. “This honor speaks for itself,” Brigadier General Benjamin Bartlett said at the award ceremony. “Its importance cannot be overstated. I’ve been in the service for 31 years, and I’ve never seen a Silver Star presentation. What he did over there was beyond heroic. Heroes are those people who are put into a position where their true inner character comes out when it is needed most.”
From today’s Patriot Post
Links to other stories about this man:Anna at Hope Road posted a link to an article by Suzanne Hadley:
For us guys, this is a dream come true…we can actually see what women really want from us.
Suzanne gives seven bullet points that we should seek to make a reality:Something I have found helpful was posting a “creed” of sorts on my bathroom mirror. I try to read it every morning. It reminds me of my priorities, of who I am, of what I am supposed to be doing.
And, I am trying to take steps of action as possible—spending time with my pastor and other older men, planning financially to save money, things like that.
But a lot of this, the attitudes of respect and love, that is a lot harder to develop. Those have to come from the heart, and they can only come from a heart that is centered on God and not on myself.
At its roots, this issue(like so many others) boils down to me relating to God as designed.
The emasculation of society by the smothering effects of modern uniformity has precipitated a severely over-managed, sadly under-led, and passionately un-principled culture from top to bottom. The great cry for the renewal of our civilization is for men to arise and be men.Tristan Gylberd
Strong men always proclaim a strong message. They do not read the polls and check the surveys before they give their opinions. In fact they do not even have opinions—they have convictions. They bleed convictions. They are strong men anchored in the strong Word of God, and, as such, they bring a message with gravitas and punch. When they stand to speak, they actually have something to say—and they say it, whether anyone listens or not. When they sit to write, they do not skirt the issues—they tackle them. When they address the times in which they live, they do not tickle ears—they box them. They do not have one message for one group and a different message for a different group. Wherever they go and whomever they address, they have only one message—God’s message. This is what makes them strong men. They speak God’s Word, or they do not speak at all.Steven Lawson, Foundations of Grace
Boys [should be] inured from childhood to trifling risks and slight dangers of every possible description, such as tumbling into ponds and off of trees, etc., in order to strengthen their nervous system…. They ought to practice leaping >off heights into deep water. They ought never to hesitate to cross a stream over a narrow unsafe plank for fear of a ducking. They ought never to decline to climb up a tree, to pull fruit merely because there is a possibility of their falling off and breaking their necks. I firmly believe that boys were intended to encounter all kinds of risks, in order to prepare them to meet and grapple with risks and dangers incident to man’s career with cool, cautious self-possession…. —R.M. Ballantyne, The Gorilla Hunters
I am a 20-something young man passionately in love with God and pursuing a mission of challenging young men with a vision for the Kingdom. I love photography, productivity and leadership. This blog is where I share quotes, thoughts, rants, information, my photographs and personal updates. For more about me, please visit the About page.