As I logged in this morning, I noticed that it’s now been more than two years since my last post. I feel a mix of nostalgia, excitement, and–honestly–embarrassment to get back to writing on the blog after so much time. But getting back into this habit is long overdue.

Where Have I Been?

Well, the last two years have been something of a blur. K and I have had a beautiful, brilliant, and exceptionally sassy little girl (now three-and-a-half) with us since February of 2024. Nothing is done until it’s done, as I’ve said before, but things are now looking as sure for adoption as they possibly could. We’re waiting for an appeal in her case to be resolved and then we should be able to finalize. I’ve had so many experiences with her (and she’s said so many hilarious things!) that it’s something of a travesty I’m only now starting to post about her.

K’s father passed away in November of 2024 as well. It has been, and continues to be difficult, both with the grief that necessarily accompanies such a change (he is the first of our parents to pass) and the additional responsibilities of familial support that come with these kinds of life changes.

As you need no one to tell you, the world, including America, has been in a state of turmoil since I last posted, and for so many unnecessary reasons. The state of government and justice–or the lack thereof–in our country is something that needs more voices calling out, and I intend to do so. I feel this responsibility especially deeply as the misunderstanding, often willful, and misuse of Christianity had been used to justify the daily erosion of democracy and human rights. It’s high time for me to turn my feeling the collective moral trauma of the present into something useful.

In August of last year, I went back to school! I’ve started attendance in the Master’s of Theological Studies program at United Theological Seminary. One semester down and I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed a return to studying, attending classes (remotely; the program is entirely online, which is something I needed to make seminary work for me) and writing papers. Many new thoughts to share with about this experience and the further development of my theology.

Recent Projects

Between work, life events, and fatherhood, it’s been difficult to find as much time to devote to writing and creative pursuits as I’d like to. But I’m becoming better about managing and utilizing my free time for what is most meaningful rather than what is easiest, and returning to the blog is a part of that effort.

My novel continues in the rewrite. I’ve been working on replotting it for quite some time now, but I’m still not finished with this stage. That said, I’m proud of the progress made; it’s becoming more complex, more developed, and tighter in the story it presents. I’m thoroughly enjoying working on it in spite of how slow the progress has been. I’ll be sharing about some of my experiences and discoveries in the rewrite; I definitely feel I’ve learned a lot more about being a writer and the craft of writing fiction as I’ve been going back and reworking the story. My proficiency with Scriviner has expanded, and I’m excited to share some of that. As important, I’ve been able to turn one of the rooms in my home into a home office and, in addition to giving me a great place to work from home, serves very well for my creative endeavors!

As might be expected, I’ve been reading a lot of new books, recently adding those assigned for seminary. Before classes started, though, I read some works that had profound impact on how I “do” theology. Walter Brueggeman’s Prophetic Imagination has been a welcome inspiration on how Christianity might respond to current world events, and Amy-Jill Levine’s Short Stories by Jesus has drastically changed how I read the parables. Other books that I’ve enjoyed (both read with my Sunday school class) recently are Miroslav Volf’s Life Worth Living and E.P. Sander’s The Historical Figure of Jesus.

I’d, for a time, returned to working on a roleplaying game system of my own design, but I’ve again set that aside, at least for now in favor of using my creative time toward other endeavors. I’ve generally returned to the Fate system as what I intend to use for most games I’ve run, but I’m also trying to be intentional about trying out some new systems (new to me, at least) in the near future. My approach to Fate seems to have changed in the past few years; my desire to return a lot of crunch to the system has yielded to a more profound respect for the simplicity and flexibility of the core systems and an allowance for the narrative details to carry the nuance rather than needing mechanics to do so. Especially, I think I might have only recently realized how important the idea of “Aspects are always true,” is to the system’s ability to stay light and handle deep and complex narrative. Nevertheless, I’ve got some new systems I’m working on and will share–a system for cyberpunk-style human augmentation intended to capture Shadowrun-style complexity with Fate’s mechanical minimalism by relying on Transhumanity’s Fate‘s “traits” as sub-Aspects and the occasional use of Tachyon Squadron’s “min and max” dice; and a spaceship design system for a sci-fi game I’m worldbuilding.

Worldbuilding for a number of different settings continues sporadically, so look for comments on the process, the results, and some of the tools I’ve tried along the way: Nord Games’ Oracle and Elements of Inspiration decks and The Story Engine’s Story Engine, Deck of Worlds, and Lore Master’s Deck in particular.

I’ve managed to keep up with my regular gaming group, so I’ll have some things to share from there. We’ve been playing through WFRP’s Enemy Within campaign and recent video games have been Jump Space, Space Marine 2, Ready or Not and Darktide and the recent Mechwarrior games. Over the past few years, I’ve managed solo plays through Alone in the Dark, Avowed, Clair Obscure: Expedition 33, Borderlands 4 and Dragon Age: Veilguard and have recently gone back to dabble with Fallout 4 and Starfield. I have thoughts.

And, of course, there’s this whole school thing. For my first semester, “Introduction to the New Testament” class, I wrote about the Parable of the Clever Steward; I’ll at least be posting my thoughts on the topic, but I’m considering posting the whole paper for anyone who is interested.

A Note about AI

It feels like, in this day and age, something has to be said about this. I will never use AI in writing on the blog (or anywhere else for that matter). I may use some art generated by AI (Midjourney, specifically) for post pictures, but will generally continue to resort to free stock art as I have above. While I definitely support the use of human artists whenever possible–and always in commercial ventures–I am less concerned about AI art in non-commercial contexts for small projects where the realistic alternative is someone like myself drawing stick figure art.

I acknowledge that AI can be a useful tool in some circumstances, but I’m highly concerned about how its developers are recklessly pushing it and how unquestioningly consumers are accepting it despite its many (many) failings. There’s a lot to be said about the ethics of AI use, so I expect that’s something I’ll take up at a point in the near future.

Conclusion

Remarkably, the blog has maintained a steady level of engagement despite my failure to provide new material. Viewing posts is not alone enough to say that people want more, but I’m hoping that’s the case! If you’ve read something on the blog that you’ve been hoping I’d say more about or revisit, shoot me a message and let me know!