For this week, I am focusing on a prompt through a series I’ve been writing on noticing. I got this idea from a book that stood out to me in gradient color from a trip to Barnes and Noble.

I was perusing (as one does) with endless eye catchers for health, history, and hot chart trending published works. This might be my favorite piece to much of life’s pleasures, the perusing. If you love the writing you’re seeing, please consider hitting that heart and sharing my work to others that might also heart this work. Thanks for reading Paper Made!

What is everyone else overlooking?

When I took my first field trip down Poplar Street, I learned a famous phrase among the five and six year olds - “Step on the crack and break your mothers back!”

The mothers never asked for this, ya know?

Just because something rhymes, doesn’t mean we should say it.

Perhaps there has not been enough research in aging spines among the mothers. Regardless, this comment became a key piece of my vision for the next few years as I walked on the pavement. Kids (even I in my gull-able (ness) couldn’t help but notice all the cracks in the sidewalk. Tip toeing my steps around these sidewalk scars led me to become keenly aware of the pavement, the details….

The nightmare of sidewalks - the kind where mom’s were painfully groaning everywhere in the world - were the ones where the cracks were almost more common than the actual smoothness of the pavement. And it felt like that’s just the way sidealks came in my neighborhood.

“I wanted people to notice me...but at the same time, I wanted to be left alone.”

― Natsuki Takaya

We like (I think) the idea of being noticed, having attention, wanting to be . . . In the circle. The reality though is that the idea 💡 is much more of an idea than anything else.

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As part of a four part series, I’ll be writing based on a prompt each week. I got this idea from a book that stood out to be in gradient color from a trip to Barnes and Noble.

I was perusing (as one does) in a bookstore with endless eye catchers for health, history, and hot chart trending published works. This might be my favorite piece to much of life’s pleasures, the perusing.

If you love the writing you’re seeing, please consider hitting that heart and sharing my work to others that might also heart this work. Thanks for reading Paper Made!

The Birds

I gotta be honest…

It is either that birds are talking because of the wonder of creation and flying OR they’re talking about us. I have a feeling there is a mixture of both. If my son is right when he says the cardinal in our yard is Mema then she has some explaining to do. I wait in hope that one day I’ll find out whether she was discussing the new flowers she loves (planted by her granddaughter/my wife) or the weeds that need to be plucked from the tree landscaping.

As you could tell, the prompt this week is about birds.

It’s specifics was to 1) watch birds and 2) ask myself the question: What does this bird know about living that I keep forgetting?

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If you’d like to take a look back at last week’s

- The Hush’d Walk

I was perusing (as one does) in a bookstore with endless eye catchers for health, history, and hot chart trending published works. This might be my favorite piece to much of life’s pleasures, the perusing.

If you love the writing you’re seeing, please consider hitting that heart and sharing my work to others that might also heart this work. Thanks for reading Paper Made!

The House That Writes Back

As I type this in the corner of our bedroom, surrounded by generational furniture and kids shoes, I am reminded of the space of time that the present holds. Have you ever looked at what your house is made up of? Possibly different than mine but surely even at some point, you had passed down relics of the family. In our home, we have many pieces. Jewelry from grands and greats, kitchen plates, large wooden trunks, old books and memoirs, the stories go on and on. Sat beside these things too are newly made chairs, decor, pictures, devices, other pieces that come from today or years close to today.

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The Book

I was perusing (as one does) in the categorically placed aisles with endless eye catchers for topics covering health, history, and hot chart trending published works. This might be my favorite piece to much of life’s pleasures, the perusing. If you love the writing you’re seeing, please consider hitting that heart and sharing my work to others that might also heart this work. Thanks for reading Paper Made!

The Hush’d Walk

I chose a path not unfamiliar to me (or at least what I felt I knew) before committing to an hour of hush and hear. It first reminded me of two points in my life where I’ve practiced silence (both of those times being prompted to the art of quiet mouths). The first was on a Sabbath Retreat (don’t knock it till you try it! Although I imagine no one would knock something with the word sabbath in it).

The prompting of that exercise was to not speak-only observe-for 6 hours. The retreat was at a local camp and retreat center I knew growing up as a kid. So, off I went (perusing of course) the different spaces of that camp. I led first with a kayak down the lake attached to the property. I thought maybe if I’m far enough away I could talk to myself (does that count?!?) - No, it seems cheating the sabbath and really a bad label to carry after such a retreat: “Look, there goes the Sabbath Cheat!” - I think I'll stick to the rules. Otherwise, they’d undoubtedly write a parable about it.

The six hours (after my brain stopped fighting the concept) went by fairly quickly. I began to take time to observe longer, thinking deeper, and practice the quiet hush of the spirit in a more appreciative sense. After those six hours, I felt something I imagined in the beginning could not happen: I wanted more silence. It was like my soul was parched and needed what that deafness had. And even though my enjoyment and interest peaked in the exercise, I haven’t returned to that practice … yet.

The other prompt I can recall was from a 30 minute practice to “carry the cross” to a hill for another retreat in the Smoky Mountains valley of Lake Junaluska, NC.

While I didn’t “carry the cross” - I was part of the hundreds who formed line up the walkways that committed to being lead by a group of young people who took a wooden cross as our lead of the line. It was a communal practice that offered individual reflection. In that walk, you remained focus in mind and in breath. It took a fair amount of your energy but it ended with the view of the cross in the picture above.

Back to the Prompt

I do wonder what birds are saying. They speak across species as if they are selling Grandma’s jewelry at an auction sale. To use a southern colloquial, they talk “a mile a minute”. In a time where I am not to talk, I found that interesting - the first things I notice is talking.

If you should ever practice a “Hush’d Walk” then I imagine you will initially be like me - noticing a million pieces of the world around you and having difficulty to remain silent in my head as much as my mouth. The mind, you find in this practice, talks more than the mouth does. Perhaps this is why monks find such a profound depth in being without speech.

The walk left me to imagine other thoughts that are part of my everyday life - the ordinary parts. I thought about my wife and my kids. I thought about our home and what I normally do on a Friday-clean my car’s interior (a true love in the Friday morning routine), mow the yard, write pieces for future substacks, drink coffee…

I noticed my walk, the steps I take everyday and how much I could feel my gait matching my grandfathers-according to my mother. I felt the sun and the clouds playing peek-a-boo. It reminded me of how much our 1 year daughter Julia loves this game.

And here lies the main thought: Everything is connected and informs the next thought by the previous.

I spent on an hour in silence and suddenly felt that same itch from the Sabbath Retreat - let’s get more of this. How many times have we had a thought like this? Something reveals itself when we push ourselves out of the ordinary living - more wellness focus, more time to read, more adventures, less work, less value on things that don’t bring joy. The scale of weight is heavily moving between these two sides: less and more. I have a sneaky suspicion that the art of living well is to make smaller adjustments between less and more, so that life has what it needs and what it wants in small waves.

(Phone Reminder notification: time to get the kiddos)

Neat prompt.

Till next time,

B.

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It was March. A time where I live when the weather can’t make up its mind-wanting to be all four seasons at the same time. When I look back at that run streak, I’m reminded of how often I enjoy making habits, routines, repeatable tasks.

It is at the moment of letting go that we find the appropriate grip.

Running in your mid 30s seems much less complex (if you let it be). Show up, one step in front of the other, return back home because you forgot your earpods, and repeat steps. If my front door could talk, I have confidence that it says to the couch “he’ll be back in 30 seconds…”. It’s a nice routine to have honestly, movement of some kind. I enjoy what the body does as much as the spirit’s reaction too.

I’ve always loved this quote from Charles Dickens that I think completes this feeling so well:

Simple enough, right? Make use of our time. Care about your body and spirit to listen and act on that prompting. Some days, that’s full fledged day of heavy activity and others it is a marathon of your new binge watch show (my wife is practicing this with the fifth season of Sweet Magnolias and a dose of watering our plants). Lately for me, it’s finding time to walk one of our several trail offerings and practicing with my kids the activities they’re interested in. Just a few weeks ago, the balance was an audiobook - Smiling or You’re Doing It Wrong by Andy Glaze and journaling. These habits continue but time gives way to other interests as they come.

The Things We Thought Would Save Us

I have sneaky suspicion that making real-life choices with balance as a priority is really the whole point this entire time. There are things that certainly we can do to “advance” ourselves. We can work in areas related to career, community, and personal life that will yield results for us. I remember the high school days of working tirelessly at baseball. I would work out in the morning before school, go to practice after school, and finish with a workout before going to bed. I was obsessed with routine and making sure that one thing remained consistently at a high level.

This was good. It came with accomplishment and recognition. It resulted in opportunity and remains a time of my life that I remember with gladness. But in truth, did I neglect things for the sake of leaning my effort in one direction that otherwise would have sprouted other life-giving means to myself AND to my neighbor?

Yes, probably.

Certainly there were hours I could have set myself in quieter spaces. I had things still to learn about life that would have been gifts to know as a moderately mature adult. Perhaps the recalling of events in our life as a means to practical adjustment to our present day living is the step worth taking.

We teach ourselves everyday that we listen. We listen better when we pause to think, to be exposed to our perceptiveness. When we let that space take over, above all, we find balance - a teacher of the pendulum, the slack line, the place where we make decisions based on the counterweight. And by chance, in this act of leaning and learning, the advancement of life is made by keeping keen observance and practice to all walks of our life.

The trust fall in running everyday was to not pretend I knew what I was doing or that I would in turn now be an impenetrable force of Forest Gump level endurance. I let go of presuppositions and decided the gift of presence would be my ally. The same for making the bed everyday, the likeness of paying attention to people and being a good listener in conversation with them and with the world around me. I stay present more when I honor what my family and community needs as much as what I need. The directions and the time that those need are all different. They don’t always live in unison. Po from Kung Fu Panda sometimes needed a couple more bowls of noodles to find meaning in his training to be the Dragon Warrior.

The thing we think we need more of is usually the reason our life stays imbalanced. We cannot do all things at all times with all people. But we can make adjustments. We can let others help carry the bowl (of noodles). We can find rhythm.

Career ladders are overrated. If we want to build ladders, let them be both for ourself, our friends, our kids, our community. Occasionally, if we notice it, our life is telling us that the right direction is going down the ladder.

Till next time,

B.

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I am notorious in my family for “ruining” photos [their word]. At the obligatory 3,2,1, count…something in me yells to “get weird with my face”. I know it to be a hereditary trait because my kids share it too (SCORE!)

Facial expressions range from displeased, emotionless to the eyes crossed, the tongue out, and nostrils failed. I’d say this is one of the gifts of the spirit-to be expression-filled in the comedy of life. My opinion on photos is the more random, the better.

Cats are weird.

I took the one above while in our backyard with the fam.

We had a beautiful yard of play and peace at that house (affectionally called The Peach House). Landscaping made well and kept contained by the paver stones, a mulched playground that was created out of a rousing search of Pinterest backyards, and slef-made outdoor grill space that left callised fingers and a lesson in geometry.

The playground contained a play set (3 tiered with slide, lookout spot, and swings), a trampoline (net included!) , and the traditional stringed lights to add picturesque ambience. We’ve moved a few times since then but I think of that backyard often.

I have two modes of remembering that backyard - my iPhone photos and memory.

Sometimes, those memories serve well and sometimes the photo tells a different story. The memory remembers everything outside of the lens, the life not contained in the window of snapshots. The photo gives detail to a piece of the moment - a narrowing view into people or places where there was curiousness. These moments range from ordinary (might even boring) to random, wild, worthy pieces of interpretive art. No matter the placement on the spectrum, they tell a story. I prefer the random ones. The ones that need explaining, context, imagination. God (I think) likes to call this using the len’s of Christ’s vision. Making it to be more than meets the ye. Something in a photo (a glimpse in our story) that says there is something behind the image-there in fact is more. As a pastor, I know this “imagination” is about as important as syrup is to the pancake. But even more than my profession, it is an example to us as humans-to see beyond the frame and to let a story speak out in our own curiosity to know it.

One photo can tell a story

as unique as the viewer will let it.

Till next time,

B.

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I knew the after school TBS show lineup in 2005 like Ron Swanson knows a slab of American Cherry.

I would get out of school, go to baseball practice, arrive home, rush to my living room and tune into a generous forming of Home Improvement. Two episodes starting at 5PM.

The show for me fulfilled a lot of checked boxes: dynamic relationships, a dash of drama, heavy dose of humor, slightly educational [enough for Bob Villa to make his nemesis induced appearances].

I thought about this show particularly in 2021 when I took up some woodworking projects. I had come across a woodworker who shared some projects on YouTube. The projects ranged from home renovations to niche crafts. And in a time that many of us found ourselves intentionally wandering, this was a place where I felt moved to try.

And so I did!

The starting point was asking my dad about my “borrowing power” of his workshop collection. From there, I took mental notes of electric and hand tools that made sense for small projects. Outside of work, I would drive around town, looking for scraps of wood, stumps, anything I could use to practice on or start with. I was consumed with the craft.

I started the acquiring skill set by making a table out of left-over butcher block from a project. I whittled wooden spoons, wall decor, cutting blocks. It was a season of exploring and trying something I had no prior experience with no masters of the trade to learn from. It was purely an innocence to familiarize myself with art in a form that I found interesting.

Adam Gant, an organizational psychologist and bestselling author, says to ask these two questions about interest:

1. Do you think about it in your free time?

2. Do you bring it up in random conversations?

I emphatically answered yes to these questions in woodworking. It was a scratch able itch. Something that had depth sizable enough to not need mastery level work but something I could be proud of and even one day teach my kids. It held for me weight in hobbyist and student behavior. The hand tools were simple and effective. Some tools American made and others came from European and Asian descent. I had gained in that year of practicing newness a respect for woodworking and an appreciation in stretching myself in what I knew and what capability meant without foundational knowledge of the subject.

Deep learning strengthens our ability to help others learn deeply.

This concept hits on the Feynman Technique. Richard Feynman in a nutshell defined the learning of a topic by then breaking it down (similar to teaching a child) and using that deconstructing to construct new concepts. We see this style technique formed in people like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Warren Buffet.

The Workshop Illusion

We are mightily good at convincing ourselves we need to know something about something before starting anything. As good as we are at believing this, it is an illusion. Interest will feed our need to understand, to acquaint ourselves with more.

When I started pastoral ministry, I felt absent from knowledge and interest in it. I vividly remember a conversation with my wife as we prospected the idea. I was harshly honest about my distaste in working for the church. I had recalled all I had seen ministers do in my growing up days (the hours, the public eye, the amount of casseroles required to eat) and did not feel the fulfillment outweighed the dread. A thousand no’s before a single yes.

Once I began the work however, my interest began and in it became a thirst to know, to practice and test, to appreciate and humble myself as a student of my field in the position I had committed with God, my family, and myself to hold and be held. It was slow at first (the interest that is) but it was there. At its core, the interest was tapped into by one explicable answer: exposure.

Exposure to people, to the practice of something in repetition, the disciplines of the craft that teach before in-depth learning is accomplished. In other words, if I relinquish my own initial desires and instead move into a posture of living into the work, the work and its people will teach me things because of my proximity to them, not merely the depth of that teaching.

Real teaching is more than showing someone how to fish

…it’s hearing the story that keeps bringing them back to the lake.

I didn’t need the exegetical work of scripture, the understanding of eschatology or historical doctrines that make each faith tradition uniquely themselves. I needed the interest of a child that glamours at fire-flies or building a fort. They are more interested in containing the spark in a mason jar or cardboard box than understanding the science behind the illuminance and architecture.

We need child formed behavior…..interest. Interest that builds concepts and breaks down barriers. An interest in beginning because of our heart instead of listing why we shouldn’t begin on our lack of knowledge, expertise.

Till next time,

B.

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He was adamant that they belonged in the house.

I would find them in the typical kid hiding spots-cupboard by the pots and pans, couch cushion [along with the coins and lent], drawers of our home-work desk. Initially, this habit of sticks created confrontation only a 4 year old can have with their dad. We’d circle the wagon of his reasoning to bring them in (insert title) and I would refute said reason with my own need to keep the outside….outside.

Creating is a funny thing. It starts most of the time with an idea-something that sparks a moment and bridges the idea to the physical world.

I had the same habit his age with rocks. There was a small creek behind our house that lended a good mix of shapes and sizes. I could spend hours walking that creek bed looking for ones that gave me pause or excited me in the way nature can when we first recognize its specialty. I would fill my pockets with these one-of-a-kind gems and store them in a box in my room. Even today, I pick things up from trips, places I’ve never been, and make use of them as door holders or decoration (a habit that I believe I share with many 4 year olds).

Segway to Names

One of my recurring uses for a devotion is Bread for the Journey by Henri Nouwen. It reads about 100 words, offering scripture and wisdom each day that’s consuming enough to chew on for the morning. If it were a rock, I think it very well could be found in that creek bed-both unique and familiar at the same time.

Apart from the content and general pleasant read, I love the name.

I could and have taken hours to name something. A new event, a post, title of a devotion, my car’s nickname-the list is a litany of familiarity, nostalgia, and imagination.

And such was the process of figuring out what to call this new venture!

Buzz words popped out that are both typical to writing and also relative to my enjoyment: Trails, guides, notes, journals, Ted Lasso references. They felt like a good start but didn’t ride home with me. In the process of brainstorming-I can be caught up better in the storm than the brain. But somewhere in that think tank, I had this fondness with the word paper.

If we were to ask the digital space, they’d tell us paper is dying, a washed out style-never to be circled back to [except everything circles back?]

I have loved the tactile use of words and pages. I collect journals like I have use to re-write the dictionary. Journals all have their own style, size, image, feel. They are an identity piece of me who likes to believe I hold both nature and minimalism in me. What I mean by that is I love things to be simple and also hold complex meaning.

Paper is relatable. It’s familiar to my ever-growing interest in nature and writing. Above all, paper is simple. Made up of plant fiber, water, and other stuff I couldn’t spell, it is historically made. The other half - Made - is creation themed. It’s pointing back and ahead. It is process oriented and establishing. There we have it! Simple, familiar, complex (if needed).

Perhaps this fits the mold of you too!

Finding places of comfort alongside risk

is absolutely LIFE GIVING.

Paper Made is heart-fully - meant to make you laugh, think, remember, and love. Or that’s the hope at least-or the most?

The name is set. And yes! Sticks are cool.

Till next time,

B.

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This is a weekly newsletter with notes about faith and spirituality - sending some devotional series, community conversations, book/music/movie/show recommendations, and a moderate definition of the advertisement word “more”. If you’re seeing this for the first time, hopefully this answers “Who is Bryant Fisher?” and “What’s Paper Made made out of (wow!)?”

Who writes Paper Made?

That’d be me! Bryant Fisher here, nice to “meet” you. I’m the founder of this newsletter establishment. Paper Made has been a parking lot goal since 2019 and finally became a “thing” in 2026. Since 2019, I’ve been writing in faith publications for churches, faith non-profits, and serving as a pastor.

While my humor is a forefront of my life and as you’ll notice in writings, let me make sure you know how thankful I am that you got this far down the page. As I gravitated to the internet-making my own comments since living on this side of Myspace (can i even use that joke???), I thought this would be the best place to continue that early work of navigating life and people. It means a lot that you let me hang out in your besieged inbox and share your precious commodity of life… [time]. I’m honoured you’ve stopped by.

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