The Times (London) is reporting an interesting speech on spiritual values given by the Head of the British Army.

General Sir Richard Dannatt

General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, said that Christian leaders and chaplains in the Army needed to equip soldiers for the spiritual issues at stake.

“In my business, asking people to risk their lives is part of the job, but doing so without giving them the chance to understand that there is a life after death is something of a betrayal,” he said.

“I think there is very much an obligation on . . . a Christian leader to include a spiritual dimension into his people’s preparations for operations, and the general conduct of their lives,” he said. “Qualities and core values are fine as a universally acceptable moral baseline for leadership, but the unique life, death, resurrection and promises of Christ provide that spiritual opportunity that I believe takes the privilege of leadership to another level.” In his speech, reported in this week’s Church of England Newspaper, the Chief of the General Staff said that a true leader’s authority came down to the nature of their character and the degree of their integrity.

“Character defines the person – it answers the question as to whether this is someone to emulate and with what enthusiasm. Integrity establishes the moral baseline to lead.”

An interesting viewpoint from the very outspoken General.

Readers who follow our other websites across Syntagma Media’s network will know we have for a while had an informal supplement, or grouping of blogs, concerned with spiritual and paranormal topics.

Now that A Spirit of Place is no longer with us, owing to the author losing interest in writing about places she had never visited, we have just two sites left in this section: this one and Supernatural, authored by Deborah Woehr.

However, in September we are going to extend the group with a number of new sites based on different topic areas. One we are very hopeful of setting up arrived as a result of A Spirit of Place and may manifest in the form of a blog written directly from Arunachala, that mystical place which was the home of Ramana Maharshi in the first half of the 20th century.

Others are in the pipeline and will make up a new supplement called MetaSyntagma. Stay tuned for more information.

I’ve been checking up on some of the reviews of the Peaceful Warrior movie and they seem pretty mixed, as author Dan Millman said over on our Celebrity at Work blog. However, the audiences were not so critical. Here are a few snippets:

“By turns a riveting study of the world of competitive gymnastics, a parable for an alternative vision for today’s society, and a study in the psychology of mentoring, ‘Peaceful Warrior’ is a satisfying movie-going experience, with or without ‘the message’.”
– Les Wright, CULTUREVULTURE.NET

“While speaking with Millman recently about Peaceful Warrior, the author confirmed that my Chicken Soup Theory had severely plagued the many versions of script.”
– Kevin Biggers, FILMSTEW.COM

“I found some enjoyment by watching it as though it were an updated, Americanized version of some 1980 Hong Kong movie about training at the Shaolin Temple — which it pretty much is, come to think of it.”
– Andy Klein, LOS ANGELES CITYBEAT

“This woozily uplifting saga is big on homilies and deficient in just about everything else.”
– Peter Rainer, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

“The filmmakers can’t be faulted for trying; it’s a decent effort, but nevertheless misses out in both the mind and body categories, and rather overdoes the spirit.”
– Bridget Byrne, BOXOFFICE MAGAZINE

“The sometimes dreamy pace of Peaceful Warrior is offset by good rapport among Nolte, co-star Scott Mechlowicz and an engaging ensemble cast.”
– David Germain, ASSOCIATED PRESS

“Peaceful Warrior begins promisingly, with welcome doses of quirky humor holding the syrupy bathos at bay, yet it ultimately becomes just another average inspirational, sports-themed flick, albeit with an overlay of New Age philosophizing.”
– Timothy Knight, REEL.COM

“It may often seem like an extra-pretentious Karate Kid for grown-ups, but Warrior’s soul lessons go much deeper, to universally vital places.”
– Bob Strauss, LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS

“Strong performances by Scott Mechlowicz as Millman and Nick Nolte as the mysterious mechanic who changes his life ground the film in effective drama.”
– Sheri Linden, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“The film is better than it has any right to be, considering the prosaic source.”
– Ruthe Stein, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Well, critics tend toward cynicism and they did their job well. Readers of the book may hold different views. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s released here in England.