Bushwood (Ottawa Park Golf Course)

1. 

   Jon Komperda (Boo Boo) says:

   May 18, 2023 at 12:15 pm

   The Interior Castle
   PAX: Bull, THE Situation, Poodle, Wild Sprayer, Mr. Rogers, Boo Boo
   Q: Boo Boo
   6: Wild Sprayer

   Opened with SSH, Abe Vigodas, Merkins in cadence for warmup, then moseyed to Amphitheater, where the following transpired:

   The Interior Castle is a spiritual treatise written by St. Teresa of Ávila, a Carmelite nun, in Spain in the mid-late 1500s. It is a description of the Christian spiritual journey towards union with God using the image of the soul as an “interior castle,” with different levels of rooms.

   Three themes throughout the book are reflected in the beatdown:
   Humility: the whole journey is “downward,” so each station moves us down the steps of the amphitheater toward the “inner sanctum.”
   Discomfort: the spiritual journey is not a comfortable one, so the beatdown is meant to be challenging.
   Community: the journey is not individual, so the stations were done together and the final station was done in a circle with each PAX choosing an exercise to lead in cadence 10 reps.

   At the beginning of each station, the “room” was named, the first quote and reflection question were read. Then one of the PAX took a 35lb. plate up the center stairs, all the way around the amphitheater and then back down the stairs to the “room”–rifle carries up and down, curls when moving laterally. The plate acted as the timer. PAX did as many of the exercise as they could with rests as needed during this time (1 ½ to 2 minutes).

   The Outer Regions
   Distraction

   “There are souls so ill and so accustomed to being involved in external matters that there is no remedy, nor does it seem they can enter within themselves.”

   Are you willing to enter into yourself or are you too wrapped up in “external matters”?

   “The soul is capable of much more than we can imagine.”

   Rd. 1: 3 Mt. Climbers (2is1), 3 Merkins,
   3 Plank Jacks, 3 Air Presses

   The First Room
   Self-Knowledge

   “Terrible are the wiles and deceits used by the devil so that souls may not know themselves or understand their own paths.”

   What in your life is helping you to know yourself better?

   “Enter first into the room where self-knowledge is dealt with rather than fly off to the other rooms…We shall never completely know ourselves if we don’t strive to know God.”

   Rd. 1: Monkey Humpers
   Rd. 2: Supermen

   The Second Room
   Perseverance

   “The whole aim of any person who is beginning prayer…should be that he work and prepare himself with determination and every possible effort to bring his will into conformity to God’s will.”

   What pleasures, vanities, and anxieties distract you from listening to God’s voice?

   “Don’t become discouraged and stop striving to advance. For even from this fall, God will draw out good.”

   Rd. 1: Freddie Mercuries
   Rd. 2: Calf Raises

   The Third Room
   Renunciation

   “If a person perseveres in this nakedness and detachment from all worldly things, he will reach his goal. But this perseverance includes the condition…that you consider yourselves useless servants.”

   What do you need to let go of to be more fully committed to a life of service?

   ”Humility is the ointment for our wounds because if we indeed have humility, even though there may be a time of delay, the surgeon, who is our Lord, will come to heal us.”

   Rd. 1: Decline Merkins
   Rd. 2: Dips

   The Fourth Room
   Love

   “The important thing is not to think much, but to love much; and so do that which best stirs you to love.”

   What stirs love (humble service to God and others) in you?

   “Leave the soul in God’s hands, let God do whatever God wants with it, with the greatest disinterest about your own benefit as is possible and the greatest resignation to the will of God.”

   Rd. 1: American Hammers
   Rd. 2: Crunchy Frogs

   The Fifth Room
   Connection

   “God so places himself in the interior of that soul that when it returns to itself it can in no way doubt that it was in God and God was in it.”

   When have you felt connected to something bigger, deeper, and beyond?

   “For it is all a matter of love united with love, and the actions of love are most pure and so extremely delicate and gentle that there is no way of explaining them, but the Lord knows how to make them very clearly felt.”

   Rd. 1: Big Boy Situps
   Rd. 2: Downward Dog Leglifts

   The Sixth Room
   Dissolving

   “The soul sees clearly that another greater Lord than itself governs that castle. And this brings it deep devotion and humility. So there’s no remedy.”

   When have you come to the end of yourself? What did you do then?

   “In no way can the soul resist. It can no more do so than it can, if thrown in a fire, stop flames from having heat and burning it.”

   Rd. 1: Burpees
   Rd. 2: Jungle Boi Squats

   The Seventh Room
   Oneness

   “The Lord joins the soul to Himself.”

   What do you most desire? What do you hope for your eternity?

   “His Majesty couldn’t grant us a greater favor than to give us a life that would be an imitation of the life HIs beloved Son lived.”

   Rd. 1: Plank
   Rd. 2: 6-inches

   Circle: 10 reps in cadence, chosen by PAX
   Diamond merkins
   Klinger Kicks
   Situation Squats
   Diamond Mike Tysons
   SSH

   Announcements: Grow Ruck and Challenge Weekend
   Prayer
   Closing Quote from TofA: “The Lord doesn’t look so much at the greatness of our works as at the love with which they are done.”

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