Prepare
Vagabond Lections: The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost ( Proper 33 ), AD 2025 C Homily: Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great. Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. Miyamoto Musashi is generally held to have been the greatest swordsman in Japanese history. Famously unorthodox, impossible to predict, he fought 62 duels, beginning at age 13, and remained undefeated throughout his entire life. Having reached the pinnacle of his craft, he retired from bloodshed to focus on philosophy. He finished The Book of the Five Rings , a summation of his life’s work, just months before dying of cancer. He met his end with a sword in one hand and a cane in the other. What made him so unbeatable, what gave him that edge with which his opponents could not compete, was the attainment of what he called No-Mind. He did not think when he fought; he did not plan. But that does not mean that he didn’t prepare. Musashi ...
