Hope Challenge

Spartan Rednecks

While some of us may have backed off a little, Spartans Claudia Wiersch and Susan O'Lone have been busy doing things like triathalons. Most recently, their galant athletic performances earned them recognition as Redneck Olypians.

Ledyard Fair's inaugural Redneck Olympics.

"Claudia Wiersch of Waterford and Susan O'Lone of East Lyme were supposed to go kayaking Sunday. Instead, Wiersch's mother Joan Weigle talked them into watching her partake in four of the five events — no belly flopping for Weigle.

At the end of the day Wiersch took top honors in the women's division of the toilet bowl ring toss and O'Lone earned an honorable mention in the hay bale toss. Both work as scientists at Pfizer.

“I kept a cool head and willed it on there,” Wiersch said, laughing of her winning ringer around a plunger imbedded in the dirt.

http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=f80ac37a-1c61-4337-80d8-3401305d34b1

Go and tell the Spartans, passerby...

Brotherhood. That's what this challenge has meant to me. The past several months have been quite a challenge for me, with being diagnosed with Diabetes and all the attendant health issues I have had along with it. I am still struggling with some, but my issues are small compared to some. It has been my honor to be counted among a great fellowship during this challenge. It has been inspiring to hear your tales and to struggle along side you in my own way. I set no records, though I improved my personal health . I achieved none of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of this challenge, but what I did achieve has improved my life, perhaps saved it. Brotherhood is what made the Spartans strong. Their shields overlapping, protecting their brother on their left and through that shared strength protecting their way of life. I can;t tell you how much it has meant to me to feel my brother's shield covering me, to feel the strength of that brotherhood on my right and on my left, stepping slowly but with purpose, knowing that nothing can stand before us.

It is easier to let yourself down than to let down your brothers. So when times were tough, and I didn't feel like getting up and going on, I could let myself be defeated, but I got up and stepped on that elliptical machine because I could not let you down. What small steps they seemed to be, especially in light of the things you have been doing, which have inpired me, but what important steps they were. My thanks to you, brothers and sisters of Spartan spirit, for you have lifted me up in times of woe, you have been in my heart in times of celebration. I pray to the gods that this brotherhood shall never be ended. I salute you all, and know that my shield shall ever be raised high beside you, that I will stride forward with you and hold the line unbroken, that no fear or woe will keep me from standing with my brothers.

Thank you, Q, for all your time and energy devoted to leading the Spartan Challenge.
Do I now have 6-pack abs?
Did I climb to the top of any mountain and look down and enhance my 3-D sense of the world?
Are my senses now acutely heightened?
I would have to say, not really.
But, my mind has been cracked open a bit and I realize there is more I can do to feel alive.
This may have been another sleepy winter if it wasn’t for the Spartan Challenge.
I may not have gotten up and belly danced in front of a crowd at the Hygenic Cabaret, with my good friend, Gus, as drummer. And without that, I would never had the chance to dance with Vic Thrill and find out what a cool guy he is. I guess I have a little crush.
Jumping into the freezing ocean at the Penguin Plunge for the Special Olympics, with firestarters/jesters Mike Fritz, Q, Susan, Sherrie Boldt, Randy and Blaze was a rush, as was jumping into the water at Eastern Point Beach, just for the heck of it.
I was heartened by Susan’s brave defense of her beloved cat, Brutus, by a vicious dog.
Just maybe, I wouldn’t have gone to yoga as often and tried to find mula banda and uddiyana banda. I am not sure still that I have found them, but I will keep looking.
Q’s story of the homeless man struck me, as I recently read “Nickled and Dimed in America” which talked about how close to the edge of homelessness so many people live in our country. Balancing helping others in need and enjoying life is a challenge to all of us.
The Spartan Challenge, along with winter, will be over soon.
The spirit will remain.

The Art of War

300- March to glory
There is a nice article in Time magazine about the 300

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1595241,00.html

Thanks Brutus!

Gates of Fire - Entering the Final Week & the Race of Death

As we enter the final week of the challenge, one last surprise awaits.
Randy Spellman contacted author Steven Pressfield and asked him to sign a copy of the book for the winner. The signed copy has arrived and will be given with the sword, to the winner next Friday.


Two last doses of inspiration for the final stretch,
1) Here is a great Mind,Body, & Spirit challenge known as Tough Guy-

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=toughguy2007&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1

http://www.toughguy.co.uk/home.shtml


and
2) a new book by James Prosek.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7624886


The last challenge to close out the competition is very simple - take some time this week to write about the experience of this years challange. Write about what its meant to you, the successes, the frustrations and obstacles, what worked and what didn't. Have you found, even is some small way, that each moment really does count and how much you really do mean to all the people around you.

Over 2400 years ago, 300 Spartans were offered to have their lives spared if they would only lay down their weapons. To this Leonidas replied 'Molon Labe!'


Let honor be to those in whose life
it was set to guard Thermopylae.
Never moving away from duty;
Just and equals in all of their acts
But with sadness and compassion
Brave once they are rich and when
They are poor, again brave
Coming to aid as much as they can;
Always speaking the truth
But without hate for those who lie.

Each day, perhaps seemingly in small ways, we face this same choice.
What will you choose? The be just and equals in all your acts, to come to aid as much has you can, and will you speak truth without hate for those who lie?

What say you?

Molon Labe!

Wii & We - Spartan Brotherhood (& Sisterhood)

If I was suprised and humbled by the tremendous generosity and and great love that has been shown me your gifts, I was doubly so when I recieved the second package this weekend filled with games galore. Truly you are my brothers, with songs and stories by the fire under the light of the stars, laughter ringing through the halls of time, and tears fallen like the torrent of a summer storm or the soft drop of the spring dew. Though time and distance seperates us, and the roar of the modern world is deafening, I still hear the beating of our hearts as one.

If we love one another, nothing, in truth, can harm us, whatever mischances may happen.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


As I traveled to work this weekend, I saw a man holding sign at the light at end of a highwayhighway exit ramp. It simply said
IM HOMELESS
IM JOBLESS
PLEASE HELP
Dressed in a Carhart style overall suit, with long dirty blond hair stretching past the cover of his woolen cap to his shoulders, I was lost in my own excitement of the morning : the great workout, the impending Great Harvest breakfast and coffee, the planning of the days experiments , the afternoon family time with the Wii...I say that I had not thought to give this fellow anything, I hadn't even considered it yet before I had the compulsion to look behind me, at an elderly couple in an Expedition pulling up behind me. The fellow with the sign had some kind of radar, I could see the couple making the decision to get him some money and sign man came over very casually. He gave his thanks and went back to his station without so much as looking at anyone in the other cars (myself included). The light turned green and I was off to breakfast, I picked us up some Great Harvest breakfast rolls, some scones and coffee and made my way back to Sign man for meal and some conversation.
The rest of the adventure is for another day.
The reason I tell you this is because, what I take from this all is how much 'We' have made a difference in my life. Its not just the Wii but the We that put me on this adventure and many others in life. I look back at all the many gifts I've had and the greatest gift is how the Brotherhood and the gifts of 'We'/'Wii' has made me who I am.

Give bread to a stranger, in the name of the universal brotherhood which binds together all men under the common father of nature.
- Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus)