"In our lines of work, I don’t know that we will ever be rich. But I don’t think I care about that all that much. As long as I have a steady supply of kisses, bros, and cookouts, I’ll be more than happy."
"It seems like ideas always sneak up on you when you’re not ready. Hands full; mouth full; without a pen; shitting; running; driving; fucking; showering; parasailing; whatever. You want to yell, “Get out of here, god damn ideas! Why don’t you come back when I’m ready?” You swat the air like flies are around you. At least I do. Then come the looks."
"There are a lot of different buckles on the market. Some good, most bad. Our default is always to get samples of the best we can find and see how they function. Then we try to break the ones we like. When we can’t, and they function well with our other materials, that’s what we use."
I’m writing this for one reason, to write this. I get in a place where I just can’t finish writing anything. I end up with a dozen mostly finished drafts that I keep saying I’ll come back to and never do. This syndrome is called: being a writer.
So that’s why I’m writing this, to be a writer. To stop finding excuses to procrastinate, doubt and stonewall. Sometimes the only thing to do is ship some work, even if it’s shit work.
So that’s why I’m writing this, to ship some work. To stop pretending that I’ll get to it when the time is right because the time is never right. The ’right time’ is an ideal we’re always looking for that just doesn’t exist in the chaotic reality we live in.
So that’s why I’m writing this, because sometimes the wrong time is exactly the time to do it. Whatever it is.
"I understand that most of us “just marrieds” are broke, or pretty close to it. We still don’t have a sofa, and we don’t pay for cable (or have a tv), and we don’t go see movies – but I’m indescribably grateful for a husband who views our relationship as more valuable than a sofa and a coffee table."
"Then I got to thinking and the now common phrase, “the best camera is the one you have with you” came to mind and I thought to myself, sometimes the best one is an ellaborate DSLR, sometimes it is a simple old film camera, and sometimes it is the one built into your phone, but today, on this perfect afternoon with a cool breeze on my face, the best camera was none at all."
Current text editors are like Swiss Army knives. They have drafting modes, editing modes, formatting modes, you can do all kinds of fancy stuff, but the main thing, writing, is lost.
The main problem with major text editors today is that they were designed by programmers, not writers. But iA Writer was designed with the writer in mind.
Exactly. This is why you should stop writing in Word and start writing in ANYTHING ELSE.
"Did you know that God tells stories? Did you know that God doesn’t just lecture me, and give me the answers? Do you know that our God makes us ask questions? Did you know that God isn’t interested in giving us a sermon? Did you know that God trusts our hearts to put CRAZY stories in front of us, knowing full well that they might cause us to doubt?"
"And while Brooklyn might be a great place for other artists, poets and painters to live and interact and steal from each other, all your sad little Brooklyn novels end up sounding about the same. Novelists in packs are like Smurfs, except drunk and bitter."
Zebedee is a small character in the Gospels that you may or may not recall off the top of your head. He only appears once during the story of Christ’s ministry (recounted in Mt 4:21,22 and Mr 1:19,20) but he has one big claim to fame. Zebedee is the father of James and John, the apostles. These brothers were not only apostles, they were rockstars, part of Jesus’s inner circle. Both were some of the only people to see Jesus resurrect the daughter of Jairus and Jesus’s transfiguration. They were with Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus referred to them as “Boanerges” or “Sons of Thunder”. James was the first apostle to be martyred for his faith. John wrote multiple books of the new testament. Both were with Peter during the early days of the church. Quite a resume, eh?
“Yes impressive, but wasn’t I talking about their dad, Zebedee?”
One of the biggest things Christians men are told is to consider the legacy you will leave. How will you be remembered in your church, your community, your family? James and John certainly left a legacy. I think that anyone of us could be called to the kind of public, large-scale ministry that James and John were. I also believe that most of us won’t be called to that kind of ministry. Gone are the days when God only spoke on a grand scale through prophets, leaders and judges. With the spirit in us, our ministries are often on a much more intimate level, one-on-one with our neighbor. Most of us will leave a smaller legacy.
“Interesting, but come on man, what about Zebedee?”
If God calls me to leave the kind of legacy that James and John did, I hope to follow that calling with my whole being. But if he doesn’t, which he probably won’t, my prayer is to leave the legacy of Zebedee. We know very little about Zebedee except that he raised two of the greatest followers of Christ that ever lived. That’s a pretty killer legacy. Our little ones are the future of God’s kingdom. What is more important than protecting their hearts in preparation for God’s work?
We don’t know what kind of father Zebedee was nor do we know exactly how much his parenting prepared James and John for their ministry. I’m sure Zebedee made all the same mistakes our fathers made, the same mistakes we will make some day. But that’s what is so amazing about living in Christ, sometimes it’s the people who struggle the most that he uses the most. The gospel writers don’t record the details of Zebedee’s life because the details, good or bad, aren’t important. What’s important is that God used Zebedee’s fatherhood to prepare two of Christ’s greatest disciples and closest friends. I hope to leave the same legacy as Zebedee, children that are 10x the Christian I ever was.
