Print Vol. 2

Foreword

You’ve picked up a magazine by guys who love Jesus.

We talk about initiation and the young man’s soul. There’s no better description for what’s happening here. An initiation is a beginning. It’s the way in to a process that builds maturity.

A funny story about this issue: While building my shed, I routinely conned Sam into manual labor by offering him a ride home then driving to my house instead, where I needed help with some carpentry. This isn’t the kind of thing we’d endorse, but it’s practical. Anyway, I’d wrung a fair share of labor out of Sam, maybe 10 hours, when he announced he planned to demo and replace his kitchen floor. Of course he meant I’d better help, so I did. We tore out tile, and then a subfloor, and then some very vintage linoleum. And then more linoleum. And then a little more. We found a veritable baklava of kitchen floors.

It’s an easy metaphor: however deep you go, there’s a layer deeper. Tear up the floor—there’s more floor below. That’s always true of initiation. An initiation is a beginning. Try making ramen: dissect the bowl, and you get the fillings and the broth. Dissect the broth, and you get kombu, katsuobushi, miso, sake, salt, pork fat, etc. It’s not so much you learn to make ramen. You learn how to learn how to make ramen. This is the life of the apprentice: making ourselves students, finding the foundations, trying to live it ourselves.

We want to understand the soul—how it grows and functions and thrives. We want to understand how young men become good men. Hopefully, the best men you know. We know the way to do all this is to make ourselves apprentices. Of manual labor. Of travel. Of loving. Of Jesus. Yup, of ramen too.

This issue, the extended And Sons team leveled foundations and joined wood, asked mentors how to love the girl, worked towards structured lives, hunted, cooked, traveled, and quit. One guy watched out for snipers in occupied Ukraine. One guy stayed out all night catching tuna. A couple dudes rode the heck out of some mountain bikes. A couple dudes worked toward a monastic life.

Welcome back. This is your tribe. And Sons. An exploration of the young man’s life, made by guys living it too.

– Blaine Eldredge