Print Vol. 3

Foreword

I recently read “Papillon,” the true story of a young frenchman, Henri Charrière, who was falsely accused of murder and sent to spend his life in the penal colonies of French Guiana. Rather than accepting his fate, Charrière spent years in escape attempt after escape attempt, eventually succeeding. What struck me most in his story wasn’t his determination or the wild stories of his cavals. Instead, it was his lack of concern for five or 10 years of his life passing without much to show for it.

Our western culture demands results every day, every semester, at the very least every year. We are obsessed with the immediate.

Here at And Sons we are convinced that things worth having take time. Yes, we want to be present to the moment, but we also want to be focused on the long term, and on the men we are becoming. We are learning to see the day through the lens of the decade. Well, most of the time anyway.

That’s what we’re after with Volume 3: To give our attention to the slow development, to see the themes of our season that we might better discover where we are being invited to grow, or adventure, or to know when a transition has arrived. We’d like to be better men 10 years from now.

So welcome back, comrades. Hitting our third release feels a bit like gaining admission to the “trilogy club,” if there is such a thing, and if there’s not, then we’d like to form it.

Right from the start, we like to lead with a welcome to our Jesus-loving, eclectic, soul-level, adventurous, and (we think) beautiful magazine. No hidden surprises, no hidden agendas, just a group of guys who think it’s better to be ourselves than try to pretend to be something else.

We don’t believe Jesus needs to be dressed up or dumbed down. He is perfectly comfortable being himself and meeting us in the places and hobbies and things that we love, while always calling us further up and further into relationship, initiation, and the men we were meant to be.

– Sam Eldredge