Warden's Keep
type: channel
date: 2023-09-20T04:05:37Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
generator agent: https://wordpress.org/
items: Guess Who’s A Trucker Now?
items: Bill Whittle Talks Screen Writing
items: Thoughts on Writing — Why Preaching Fails
items: Augustinian Transactionalism Is A Headache
items: Byzantium — The Church, the New Testament, and Holy Tradition
items: Byzantium — What is Christian and What is Crap?
items: Byzantium — We Built This City…
items: Byzantium — Signs, Co-Emperors, and Confusion
items: Byzantium — The Pre-Founding
items: Get Ready for Some Changes

Guess Who’s A Trucker Now?
type: item
creator: G. K. Masterson
date: 2023-09-20T04:05:37Z
subject: Real Life
description: Yeah, I am. 🙂 I got into a trucking school back in May where I learned everything I needed to learn to get my CDL-A. After that, I went out on the road with a trainer where I learned how to really handle a truck. I started driving on my own back in August and ... Read more
encoded: Yeah, I am. I got into a trucking school back in May where I learned everything I needed to learn to get my CDL-A. After that, I went out on the road with a trainer where I learned how to really handle a truck. I started driving on my own back in August and just came home for the first time. On Saturday, I’ll get another load and shoot out for another month or so before I come home again. My first month out has shown me just how far I have to go. Don’t get me wrong — I’ve enjoyed it thoroughly. But I am very, very, VERY thankful for all the more experienced truckers out there who have been super patient with me and helped me get backed up to doors or into parking spots when the set-up is not something taught at the academy. Without these absolute angels among men, I’d have done some serious damage. I mean, I can straight-line like anyone else but setting up for a 45° back when I don’t have the space I’m used to? Or backing up off-set up a hill? Or handling a super-tight backing? Not easy. What I generally do is straight-up tell the shipper or receiver that I’m still new and could use a spotter and that it will go faster if they put me on an easy door. I do the same thing at truck stops if there isn’t a whole lot of open parking. I’ll find a trucker and wave him over and ask for help. I know that as I get more experience under my belt, I’ll need this less and less, but I’m very thankful for all the guys who have taken time out of their day to help me. This help, this sense of “brotherhood,” is something that you don’t find in a lot of other fields. I know that I was pretty much thrown to the wolves as a teacher. But I’ve found that being honest about what I can do and what my experience is while driving tends to make the others do what they can to help me and to explain things so that I can get better. The money is good, too. I drive for a great company and they pay well and treat me well. No micro-management. No mandatory daily meetings to get screamed at over thing…

Bill Whittle Talks Screen Writing
type: item
creator: G. K. Masterson
date: 2023-04-01T18:49:38Z
subject: Uncategorized
description: So, yesterday, Bill Whittle came on my livestream and we talked about screen writing! Watch below! These are the books Bill was talking about: Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting Making a Good Script Great
encoded: So, yesterday, Bill Whittle came on my livestream and we talked about screen writing! Watch below! These are the books Bill was talking about: Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting Making a Good Script Great

Thoughts on Writing — Why Preaching Fails
type: item
creator: G. K. Masterson
date: 2023-03-28T05:36:25Z
subject: Publishing
subject: Writing
description: So, it’s no real secret that I deeply dislike preach-fic or message-fic. I find it trite, dull, uni-dimensional, and lazy. I do this even when I agree with the message being preached because it’s just not good story-telling. However, the question comes up as to why it’s bad story-telling. And, while I’m struggling with the ... Read more
encoded: So, it’s no real secret that I deeply dislike preach-fic or message-fic. I find it trite, dull, uni-dimensional, and lazy. I do this even when I agree with the message being preached because it’s just not good story-telling. However, the question comes up as to why it’s bad story-telling. And, while I’m struggling with the whole “Augustine might be smart but he’s still an idiot” thing, my brain has been coming up with the answer to this other question. The reason preaching is bad story-telling is because it forces everything to follow a set-piece theme and anything that deviates from this must be removed or mocked. It causes the author to turn just about every scene, every conversation, every interaction, every internal monologue to become yet another chance to deliver The Message. Every character is cast in terms of how they deal with The Message. Every plot point becomes about how The Message is Good. There’s no chance for the characters to develop quirks, personalities, relationships, or any characteristic that is not going to re-enforce The Message. Historically, the worst examples of this have been in Christian fiction. For instance, I read the entire Left Behind series and found it enjoyable as a nice fluff read. However, I rarely find myself interested in going back and re-reading this series because the characters are so dull and one dimensional. They’re either “saved” (which is a word I hate because of that Augustinian transactionalism) and thus always doing Good or repenting for doing Bad and praying for those who aren’t “saved” yet. If they’re not “saved” then they are either Pure Evil with no hope of redemption or they’re selfish, self-centered, self-focused, hedonistic people who will either become “saved” or will become Pure Evil. <img decoding="async" src="https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/cd4.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="500" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-3126" srcset="https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/201…

Augustinian Transactionalism Is A Headache
type: item
creator: G. K. Masterson
date: 2023-03-28T01:17:03Z
subject: Uncategorized
description: No, I haven’t forgotten about this place. However — and I cannot overemphasize this enough — trying to explain Augustine, Anselm, and why they are both kind of idiots is incredibly difficult. That’s been my stumbling block for months and that’s why there haven’t been any updates. Add in that I am currently looking for ... Read more
encoded: No, I haven’t forgotten about this place. However — and I cannot overemphasize this enough — trying to explain Augustine, Anselm, and why they are both kind of idiots is incredibly difficult. That’s been my stumbling block for months and that’s why there haven’t been any updates. Add in that I am currently looking for work and I just haven’t been able to find the time or energy to study history while I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to pay my bills and you’ve got a pretty good picture of how things are. That said, hopefully I will find something soon and will be back to explain why Augustine, even though he is a Church Father, is also a ginormous idiot. — G.K.

Byzantium — The Church, the New Testament, and Holy Tradition
type: item
creator: G. K. Masterson
date: 2022-08-25T21:34:16Z
subject: Byzantium
subject: History
subject: Orthodoxy
subject: Roman
description: So, the next few posts in this series are going to focus a little more on understanding the structure of the Orthodox church and its core beliefs and practices because understanding them is kind of important to understanding why Roman civilization continued and flourished up to the fifteenth century in Byzantium but floundered and collapsed ... Read more
encoded: So, the next few posts in this series are going to focus a little more on understanding the structure of the Orthodox church and its core beliefs and practices because understanding them is kind of important to understanding why Roman civilization continued and flourished up to the fifteenth century in Byzantium but floundered and collapsed in Rome and points West. Previously, I warned the Catholics not to come at me over the fact that our two communities haven’t seen eye-to-eye on a lot of things for the better part of over 1500 years. This week, it’s the Protestants’ turn to get their feathers ruffled. Now, I’m going to say this again: this is the Orthodox point of view. I’m not asking you to take it for your own or to even like it. I’m asking you to accept it as the Orthodox and Eastern view, a view that is very decidedly not Romanocentric. If you can do that, then we can do that “agreeing to disagree” thing. But if you think you’re going to come at me with how the Holy Spirit departed the church in the early centuries because the Pope was bad (it didn’t and the Pope wasn’t always a bad guy), how Christ “shrouded” the Real Truth until Luther/Calvin/Williams/Smith/Henry VIII/Parham/whoever your Modern Prophet Who Talks To Jesus On The Two-Way Radio is was born (go join the Gnostics and talk about how super Magickal and Spiritual you are and how you’re the Mostest Spechulist Widdle Snowflake in the Universe), or how Holy Tradition is wrong and obscures the truth of the New Testament (where in the name of God do you think the New Testament came from, you bloody-minded, squirrel-brained imbeciles?!), then I make you the same offer I made the Catholics last time: I’ll throw the Golden Gate and the Brooklyn Bridge in free for you fine folks! Sorry if that seems harsh but if I have to suffer through Yet Another Conspiracy Theory about how there wasn’t a “real, true church” from about 50 AD until Whenever The Great Restorer You Like Was Born AD, then I might start stabbi…

Byzantium — What is Christian and What is Crap?
type: item
creator: G. K. Masterson
date: 2022-08-23T19:37:25Z
subject: Byzantium
subject: History
subject: Orthodoxy
subject: Roman
description: So, this is going to be one of those posts where the Catholics aren’t going to like what I have to say. Therefore, I’m going to make a deal with them: if y’all are willing to understand that this is the Orthodox point-of-view and that I’m not asking you to accept it, like it, or ... Read more
encoded: So, this is going to be one of those posts where the Catholics aren’t going to like what I have to say. Therefore, I’m going to make a deal with them: if y’all are willing to understand that this is the Orthodox point-of-view and that I’m not asking you to accept it, like it, or agree with it beyond saying “that is what the Orthodox think, we think differently,” then we can do this thing called “agreeing to disagree.” If you’re going to come at me thinking that you can ignore Acts of the Apostles (you can’t), that Rome was the only church Peter founded (it wasn’t), and that letters recognizing the bishop of Rome as first among equals because of Rome’s political importance are somehow saying that he’s Super Bishop and King of All Creation (he’s not), and that I’m going to suddenly change my mind well… I’ll throw the Golden Gate Bridge in free. So, as I mentioned last time, Old Rome did not much cotton to this “New Rome” being given the same prominence it had once held now that the seat of government had moved east. When Constantine argued that the bishop of Constantinople should be granted the title of “Patriarch” since he now led the church in the Imperial Capitol, well, that didn’t sit well with Rome. However, it went through because the process of allowing the expansion of the church was not subject to much centralized control (how could it be — this was way before telegraphs, the postal service, steamships, railroads, or anything resembling fast transit). It helped that the church of Constantinople had been founded by one of the Apostles (Andrew) in the first century so it wasn’t like it hadn’t been part of the ancient community. Now, as I’ve mentioned before, Constantine converted to Christianity. However, back in this era, there wasn’t any solid definition of what it was to be Christian and which teachings from which churches were authentic and correct. There was a lot of heresy and heterodoxy in this era and the Gnostic garbage is probably the most well-known …

Byzantium — We Built This City…
type: item
creator: G. K. Masterson
date: 2022-08-22T19:38:45Z
subject: Byzantium
subject: History
subject: Orthodoxy
subject: Roman
description: …On Christianity and trade routes. You didn’t actually think the answer was going to be “rock ‘n’ roll,” did you? Yeah, no Constantinople was founded by our boy Constantine because he was paying attention to the times. That’s right, I’m talking about the actual city now that I promised I would get to last time. Now, ... Read more
encoded: …On Christianity and trade routes. You didn’t actually think the answer was going to be “rock ‘n’ roll,” did you? Yeah, no Constantinople was founded by our boy Constantine because he was paying attention to the times. That’s right, I’m talking about the actual city now that I promised I would get to last time. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-23295" src="https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/8327-1024x666.webp" alt="Silk Road" width="1024" height="666" srcset="https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/8327-1024x666.webp 1024w, https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/8327-300x195.webp 300w, https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/8327-768x500.webp 768w, https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/8327.webp 1280w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /> Going around the African Cape was just Not A Thing back then… Now, don’t get me wrong — Rome had been a powerhouse for a long time and definitely had a good position on the Tiber and the Mediterranean. It had been ideally situated to challenge and later beat the tar out of Carthage. It was accessible by the Greeks and the Macedonians and had the ability and the materials necessary to build some really good ships. But once Carthage had been stomped into the ground, well, there really wasn’t much in the way of trade west of Rome. Now, sure, there were silver and tin mines in Spain and tin mines up in Britannia but it was easier, in some ways, to transport those goods overland instead of on ships. Trade shifted back eastward towards Greece and Asia Minor since that is where one could find spices coming up from India and China and other points Oriental as well as stuff coming up from more-central-Africa via the Nile. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-23296" src="https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Waterways-Europe-L-1024x793-1024x793-1-300x232.jpg" alt="Rivers i…

Byzantium — Signs, Co-Emperors, and Confusion
type: item
creator: G. K. Masterson
date: 2022-08-19T22:39:08Z
subject: Byzantium
subject: History
subject: Orthodoxy
subject: Roman
description: So, when we last met, I said that we would get to our boy Constantine. And boy howdy, we are! First, a little bit of housekeeping. We’re dealing with an era where everyone had the same few names it seems. So, the cast of characters is this: Flavy-Flav — Flavius Valerius Constantinus the Father of ... Read more
encoded: So, when we last met, I said that we would get to our boy Constantine. And boy howdy, we are! First, a little bit of housekeeping. We’re dealing with an era where everyone had the same few names it seems. So, the cast of characters is this: Flavy-Flav — Flavius Valerius Constantinus the Father of Constantine the Great Dio — Diocletian the Douchecanoe, Emperor of Rome Max-Man — Maximian, Dio’s junior co-Emperor Gal — Galerius, Flavy-Flav’s co-junior Emperor Sev — Valerius Severus, a junior Emperor once Max-Man and Flavy-Flav became Senior Emperors Minmax — Maximinus Daza, a junior Emperor with Sev Max-T — Maxentius, son of Max-Man, who didn’t like Sev at all The Big C — Constantine the Great Licey — Licinius, a co-Emperor with The Big C for a time and the guy who wrote the Edict of Milan with him <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/643df89c2325b4605d72552fd29d5754.jpg" alt="Roman Names Are Weird" width="473" height="319" class="size-full wp-image-23281" srcset="https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/643df89c2325b4605d72552fd29d5754.jpg 473w, https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/643df89c2325b4605d72552fd29d5754-300x202.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 473px) 100vw, 473px" /> Why did everyone need to have the same few names? I’ll bet everyone having the same name had something to do with all the wars that broke out. The Big C was born to a Greek Christian mother (Helena) and a Roman father who had been part of the Tetrarchy. The Tetrarchy was an attempt to make the very large, very complex, very gi-freaking-normous Empire a little less of an unwieldy kludge. And, it worked okay for a little while. Basically, there was a Senior Emperor who ruled the Eastern section of the Empire (Dio the Douchecanoe being the first) and a Junior Emperor who ruled the West (Max-Man). The Emperors appointed their own successors. Dio and Max appointed Gal and Flavy-Flav (Constantine’s dad) to J…

Byzantium — The Pre-Founding
type: item
creator: G. K. Masterson
date: 2022-08-18T22:15:43Z
subject: Byzantium
subject: History
subject: Orthodoxy
subject: Roman
description: Okay, so, pretty much everyone knows what Rome was, that it was originally a Republic and then Caesar took control and got stabbed on March 15 and there was a war and Augustus took over and then it was an Empire. We all know that Rome dominated much of the known world at that era, ... Read more
encoded: Okay, so, pretty much everyone knows what Rome was, that it was originally a Republic and then Caesar took control and got stabbed on March 15 and there was a war and Augustus took over and then it was an Empire. We all know that Rome dominated much of the known world at that era, having taken control of most of the Mediterranean, north Africa, the Iberian peninsula, and the Hellenic world of Greece and the Holy Lands in Asia Minor. We all know about Augustus or Tiberias doing a census, Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem, Jesus being born, His growing up in Judea, His earthly ministry, and His death and resurrection followed by His ascension and the descent of the Holy Spirit. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2d47358fc0dfee23936d44220263c374-300x225.jpg" alt="I founded a whole entire empire and this is how I'm remembered..." width="300" height="225" class="size-medium wp-image-23272" srcset="https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2d47358fc0dfee23936d44220263c374-300x225.jpg 300w, https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2d47358fc0dfee23936d44220263c374-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2d47358fc0dfee23936d44220263c374-768x576.jpg 768w, https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2d47358fc0dfee23936d44220263c374-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://www.gkmasterson.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/2d47358fc0dfee23936d44220263c374-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> I founded a whole entire empire and this is how I’m remembered… Still with me? Good. We all pretty much know that after Pentecost, the Apostles went around evangelizing and founding churches. Peter founded the churches in Alexandria, Antioch (with Paul), and Rome. Jerusalem had a church from the beginning and it was run by James the Less. Paul went to the Gentiles and spread word of the Word around Greece founding churches in Ephesus, Smyrn…

Get Ready for Some Changes
type: item
creator: G.K. Masterson
date: 2022-08-17T01:51:08Z
subject: Website Stuff
description: Wow. It has been a while, hasn’t it? Well, if anyone is still reading this, get ready for some changes. I’m going to get back to blogging a little more frequently than “once every few years.” One thing I’m going to be doing is to expand people’s knowledge of more obscure parts of history like ... Read more
encoded: Wow. It has been a while, hasn’t it? Well, if anyone is still reading this, get ready for some changes. I’m going to get back to blogging a little more frequently than “once every few years.” One thing I’m going to be doing is to expand people’s knowledge of more obscure parts of history like Byzantium and Scottish mythology from the pre-Christian era. I’ll also probably be revamping some of the features around here and updating the links. *chisels the dust off* Well, hell, it’s about time, isn’t it? — G.K.