Two Years of Wind, Waves, and Words

The Helm

It’s tempting to find identity in all this nautical talk and symbolism of sailing as the adventure of life.

There’s a mix of idealism and realism, with some honest romanticism in there, as well. It’s been two years since I started writing Fightin’ Poseidon, and it’s been quite an exploration.

On this anniversary, and with several new readers to welcome aboard, I wanted to give a recap of some of the waters we’ve covered. Don’t forget you can click on any of the links to go to the referenced issues.

Clash of Tides

Back in 2023, I started up my very first newsletter, titled The Weekly Rhythm, which you can still find way back in the archives of Fightin’ Poseidon. AI was just making a big splash and I was playing with Bing Image Creator and Dall-E 3 to see what kind of images I could come up with.

For the record, I still write everything you read here. Although I use AI for images, all the words are AI-free-lance. I’m not a graphic artist, and I’m not trying to be right now. Writing? Yessiree and madam. On the rare occasion I have used AI for words, I’ve made a point of saying exactly what was AI generated. My rule to be transparent is any text AI generated is always green.

So anyways, I wrote a dozen issues of The Weekly Rhythm which weren’t very good as I was trying to build a following, then didn’t sustain it for several months. This coincided with me doing the bulk of the writing for my first book, Pray Then Plow: Practical Steps For Men Who Won’t Give Up. That book is now finished and available for preorder now. It will release on February 13th, 2026. Though my target audience has never really changed, I hadn’t landed on the nautical business yet.

In this hiatus, Brian Sauvé released his Hearth Songs EP, which contained the song Old Neptune, He’s Roaring.

The song challenged boys to go on the adventure, hear the call of the mountains, seek the glory of a quest, fight Leviathan, go get the girl. It was a vivid encouragement for boys to not be passive sponges who soak in whatever happens to be floating around them but to go out and make their mark on the world for the good of those around them. It was a fire lit for them to build. As a father of two boys (and two girls) myself, this resonated deeply with me.

I started playing around with ideas and image prompts and different things and the idea of fathers guiding their sons and joining in the fight together against all the things that would prevent them from being useful and fulfilling their God given purpose was born.

The original logo wasn’t much of a logo, but an image that captured fathers and sons fighting together against all the things that keep them from being useful, taking action, and leading and loving the Lord and their families.

That logo showed up on the website, but never in an issue. On January 30th, 2024, I wrote the first issue of the work you’re now reading: Taking the Fight to Poseidon.

In the second issue, The Enemy in the Fog, another idea was developed: the cords of Poseidon. I’ve referenced it several times through the newsletter. Basically what this is was the genesis of the spiritual warfare angle. Whether you want to look at them as the giants we face in this life, or the spiritual dark forces that fuel and motivate those giants from the unseen realm, there are three fronts from which we face the fight: genuine spiritual dark forces, the people around us (who may be friend or foe), and the battle within ourselves. In some form or another, every issue deals with one of these three fronts. Sometimes it’s on walking through that fire with your child, and sometimes it’s walking through it on your own.

I never struggle with writers block. There are so many ideas coming at all times, and there are a lot of half finished issues that haven’t seen the destination of your inbox yet. Also, did you know you can visit Fightin’ Poseidon outside of your inbox and read through past issues like a blog? I often link to those issues from within the newsletter. Here’s a few of the ideas and topics we have covered:

• The Ghost Ship of Guilt (for those wracked with guilt they can’t shake)

• The Saturating Corruption of Influence (This is an idea I’ve been coming back around to a lot lately)

• A Treasure Chest of Wisdom (inspired by another father’s pain and trust)

• Fightin’ the Joy Thief (Another I reference back to frequently)

Then, two things happened almost simultaneously.

I felt like a lot of what was writing was too abstract in content, so I decided to challenge myself and take a risk to take these concepts I’d been writing about and put them into a fictional world. What started as a one-off story, Grades Aren’t Everything, developed into the 21 chapter serialized fiction, The Story of the Marsh Boy. It wasn’t for everybody. I lost quite a few readers during the near year it took to get to the end of the story. Was it perfect? Not by a long shot, but perfection is also the enemy of action. Perfectionism is a form of procrastination, and since fiction is what drew me back into writing in 2020, I wanted to lean into it. BeeHiiv rolled out the awesome feature to add audio to newsletters so there are several issues where you’ll see that still embedded and available. Halfway through the Marsh Boy, audio newsletters became a premium feature. If this ship ever skyrockets to the point I can justify that cost, audio newsletters will come back, with a whole host of other features.

The other thing that happened was writing one of the posts that received more traction than anything else I’d written thus far, Don’t Let Your Young Man Become an Un-Man. This was not fiction but the idea would shape The Story of the Marsh Boy. I had listened to the entire podcast series on The Chaos Dragon from Bible Project, along with a sanity questioning dose of The Shadow Over Innsmouth by H.P. Lovecraft and the chapters kept rolling out.

Gemini and I worked together to replace the old Fightin’ Poseidon logo with a banger of a new one. I keep thinking I need to get these into the hands of readers by making stickers. The new format rolled out and now we’ve got The Helm, Clash of Tides, The Armory, the occasional Sunbreak Story, Dropping Anchor, and the Below Deck: Deep Dive where I share additional resources for your fight in spiritual warfare.

There’s been times I wanted to quit. There have been days I’ve wondered if this writing is worth it, or if it’s just an indulgent, creative outlet. I’ve faced my own doubts and fears, sometimes successfully and sometimes sinfully and sometimes with good intentions but extremely poor self-control. Sometimes, the overwhelm just punched me in the gut and I didn’t feel like I had anything left. Maybe you read last falls cryptic issue with no explanation? Yep, that’s what that was about. Overwhelm was hitting me and it’s how my own personal fight with Poseidon, my own clash of fear and faith, showed up here. I hope by sharing some of my own struggles that gives you courage in your own. Maybe, just maybe, we’re in this together. So who’s the we and what’s the what?

I’ve pretty much aimed at Fathers and Sons for my target audience, but I’ve also realized that these men do not exist in isolation. We have many women around us who love and support us, so though my main audience is to men, and I write from my masculine perspective, Fightin’ Poseidon also has its benefit to women readers in taking them behind the curtain to get a glimpse of the other side and how they can support the men in their lives.

In the coming weeks and months, I’m aiming at encouragement. I’m aiming at healing the rift between people. I’m aiming at laying down offenses. I’m aiming at love and healing and correction and filling our bones with the fire of courage. Next week, we’ll have our very first entry from a guest author, and if you have something you’d be passionate enough to write about, hit reply to this email and let’s talk about it.

What are we doing here? In the day to day life, in the quarrels and frustrations and mixed signals and miscommunications and failures and wins and losses, we are in a battle of spiritual warfare that would have us do anything but love God and love others. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal (2 Corinthians 10), but the temptations we face may absolutely try to bait the hook with the glory and desires of self.

The Armory

It’s too easy to think it’s all up to us.

It’s too easy to get discouraged when we can’t make the wind blow or the heart change.

We are utterly dependent on the Lord.

Without Him, we truly have no hope.

As we go into this new year, may His blessing be on you and your efforts as you lead and love those he’s placed you among and knit you to.

Sunbreak Stories

During the December disc golf giveaway, I had a space on the entry form to share father/son moments or lessons. This is one of them and it captures the purposeful slowing down and quiet pursuit of those in his charge.

If you have a story you’d like to share anonymously (or non-anon if you really want), hit reply and send it on. We need all the encouragement we can get. Oftentimes, I find it’s not in hearing the imperative directions of a strong voice the most helpful. Rather, it’s asking others what their story is and what faith and practice looks like in their lives that gives me the realistic ways I can plot a course that fits my family dynamic.

Dropping Anchor

For however long you’ve been with me, thanks for joining the crew. I’m looking forward to what’s ahead as we voyage together into 2026.

While a lot of the focus around here has been on fathers and sons, fathers and sons do not live in a vacuum. In February, we’re going to be looking at relationships between men and women, as these relationship dynamics - however they’ve panned out - affect our kids. These are storms we must navigate.

If you yourself need prayer over a situation, please reply and tell me as much as you’re comfortable with and I will pray for you.

If there’s a situation you’re struggling with and want to share some of that, there’s a lot of guys bending my ear and a lot of what you’ll read here is an amalgamation of their stories. Your story or question or topic you’re wondering about could be one that our more quiet readers have been wanting to dive into themselves.

If you want to share a Sunbreak Story where you felt hopeless or lost and the Lord’s light broke through and shone into the darkness of your situation, that could be a huge encouragement to others.

If you’ve got a story about how your father or another one you’ve known showed up and fought that proverbial Poseidon himself, that could seriously fill someone’s spine with fiery courage.

We need each other. Thanks again for being a part of this. Thanks for slowing down and making the effort, but it’s more than just our effort.

May we be the means the Lord undoes decreation and recreates the world around us.

May His light shine through you to be a lighthouse to others.

May the Lord bless you and keep you and may His face shine upon you.

Stay Anchored and keep fighting the good fight,

~ J.P. Simons ⚓️

PS: If you haven’t already ordered it, please check out my first book, Pray Then Plow: Practical Steps For Men Who Won’t Give Up. Pre-order is live and the price goes up after 2/13/2026.

Below Deck: A Deep Dive

Since I’ve already written a lot, and I have a little something extra for you after this Deep Dive, we’re going to cover the next chapter in The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, read by the magnificent John Cleese.

Aside from encouragement and challenge, I’m starting to get the sense that one of the directions the Lord is taking me this year is into the way of effort. Prayer is not easy, but vague spiritual feelings are. Talk of faith is easy, but it’s difficult to love. It’s easy to save your life and it’s hard to lose it.

There isn’t a day that goes by when the dark forces of this world will not tempt us, try to influence and distract us, rob our hope from us, or altogether shipwreck us. One way that can occur is when we start to look at our feelings as actual measurements of our faith. That might be putting us exactly where devilish forces want us to be.

Today’s letter from Screwtape is a powerful interception from behind enemy lines.

And the little something extra…

Since I mentioned AI earlier, I do want to give you a snapshot of what AI writing actually looks like so you can spot it. However, I want to do this in a way that gives you more than just knowledge. I want to give you something cool out of it. You can actually get Fightin’ Poseidon as an app on your phone so I asked ChatGPT to lay out the steps to do that for Apple and Android devices and then provide a little thematic flavor text to go with it. In my opinion it sounds overly corny but maybe I’m the pot calling the kettle black with that. This is straight AI writing below without any edits. A direct copy and paste. You won’t find this kind of thing on this newsletter normally but if I make an exception, I will absolutely let you know that it’s AI.

📲 Install Fightin’ Poseidon on Your Phone

(Takes under a minute. No App Store. No accounts.)

🍎 iPhone & iPad (Safari Only)

⚠️ This works only in Safari, not Chrome.

1. Open Safari on your iPhone or iPad

2. Go to the Fightin’ Poseidon homepage

3. Tap the Share icon
   (square with the arrow pointing up, bottom of the screen)

4. Scroll and tap Add to Home Screen

5. Leave the name as Fightin’ Poseidon (or rename it if you wish)

6. Tap Add

📌 You’ll now see Fightin’ Poseidon on your home screen—opening cleanly, like a real app.

🤖 Android (Chrome Recommended)

1. Open Chrome on your Android device

2. Go to the Fightin’ Poseidon homepage

3. Tap the three-dot menu in the top-right corner

4. Tap Add to Home screen or Install app

5. Confirm when prompted

📌 Fightin’ Poseidon will now live on your home screen and open like an app.

🌊 Why I’m Asking You to Do This

Because this newsletter was never meant to compete for your attention.

It’s meant to be reachable when the wind shifts.

Present when the water gets rough.

Close at hand when you need a word, not a feed.

Installing it is a quiet choice:

• No algorithm

• No outrage

• No noise

Just wind, waves, and words—kept where you can reach them.

As we move into year three, consider this a way of stepping aboard again… not as a subscriber, but as part of the watch.