This interview was first released as a bonus episode on August 5, 2022. We remastered it into two parts that—we think—fit nicely into Season Two’s “Christian Entrepreneurship” series.
Colin Murdy was simply being generous, as his parents taught him to be, but by placing a stunning leather journal in another’s hand he opened a window of discovery. It turned out to be an important act of Christian service. In this bonus episode of Christ In All Things we interview Colin, the founder and CEO of the Murdy Creative Company. Our interview begins with a very personal “thank you,” and our conversation ranges from the goodness of the creation, to acts of service, the importance of handwriting, entrepreneurship, etc. For more information about the Murdy Creative Company, see https://murdycreative.co or search for the company on your social media platform.
Originally recorded 3 August, A.D. 2022
[00:00:00] What you're about to hear was first released as a bonus episode in season one of Christ
[00:00:06] and all things.
[00:00:08] We remastered it into two parts that we think fit nicely into season two's conversation
[00:00:13] with Christian entrepreneurship and business owners.
[00:00:18] Enjoy this conversation with Colin Mertie at the Mertie Creative Company.
[00:00:23] He really wants that and he really wants that and he really wants that and I'm like,
[00:00:25] this is going to be great.
[00:00:26] This is going to be amazing.
[00:00:27] He's going to love's Sin All Things.
[00:01:44] I'm your host, Pastor Jason Shockman. pastoral relationship allows for us to be able to talk about and be very real about things that are quite challenging and quite hard sometimes. And you and I over the course of your life have had many of those conversations in part because not only have I known you for a long time but in a lot of ways you and I
[00:03:01] are cut from a very similar cloth which was something we've talked about before. And I want to read you something that I wrote and then let you respond to it. And he's gonna, he's gonna, Pastor Shockman's gonna moderate the conversation. And to be clear, I don't know what this says. Even better. He has not shared it with me. Even better. So I want to read you,
[00:04:20] this is a two page letter that I wrote
[00:04:24] to you and your team yesterday.
[00:04:27] Oh. that was big on Wall Street, the Franklin Planner. I discovered that writing things down helped. A high school science teacher in a unit to help us prepare for college recommended taking handwritten notes and then typing them as soon as possible afterwards. When I did it, it worked really well.
[00:07:01] The handwriting focused my words, helped me time to write, to think things through and hand write a noteertie number two foolio. What is it about the feel of a fine leather journal? It's hard to explain. I remember back in piano bar in the village with a Manhattan in your hand. Design makes a difference. Design brings beauty to function. The Merti Creative Company journals remind us that the world is beautiful, writing even a daily task in a
[00:09:41] Merti journal or folio elevates it from the mundane. To live on this earth is difficult and capricious.
[00:10:42] compare something like leather to jazz.
[00:10:46] I was thinking about this as you were reading this because the good earth, you're so right.
[00:10:50] I was, people always ask me, what is it about leather?
[00:10:53] That's a good question.
[00:10:54] And it's tasty.
[00:10:57] Well, it is tasty.
[00:10:59] It has such a tactile connection to our history.
[00:11:03] It, you don't get better than,
[00:11:06] when we're talking about like,
[00:12:02] We don't touch, there's this like classic line on the internet, go touch grass, turn off your computer and go touch grass.
[00:12:04] And it's this, it's used as this kind of insult for people who
[00:12:06] spend too much time on their computers.
[00:12:08] But there's a reality to it that is deep.
[00:12:11] There are there are people who spend too much time on the computers.
[00:12:13] Well, I don't know any personally, but the so I've heard.
[00:12:18] And I think that that leather has a deep like genetic part of our life.
[00:13:22] I mean, everything, all the leather is all made in the United States. And Milwaukee actually, our hardware comes from California.
[00:13:24] It's all custom made for us.
[00:13:26] So we have a really strong belief that the quality is the foundation of what we do.
[00:13:32] And because of that, we've often avoided parts of the leather that we know our
[00:13:37] good quality leather, but would not be perceived as such.
[00:13:41] And then we launched our rugged line in part because we were seeing an enormous
[00:13:44] rising costs of our materials.
[00:13:45] And we wanted to say, how can we be more responsible with this leather? in June and July all the way to the Pacific Ocean and back to Wisconsin and I took my journal with me and I Know I know I think I sent you a picture This is a great photo from West Yellowstone with me holding my my little folio up with the with the mountains in the background And the sunrise I was up early in the morning making my coffee and I
[00:15:00] I am
[00:15:02] There was a threshold like I mean I got my first folio as a gift
[00:15:07] but I made, I didn't realize this at first, I made an investment in myself. And I was kind of struck by how important that is. Yeah. It is interesting how there's, I mean, I could cite all of the studies that talk pen and you'll look at it and you'll read it again, you're like, oh my goodness, I didn't even think of that till it happened, right? You'll write about your day. And it's just funny, I had a method of writing that I had been doing for a long time where I would journal kind of a form that I used. I kind of gotten away from it a little bit personally recently, but I had a form that I would use and I would write a couple of specifics about a couple of specific topics throughout the
[00:17:40] day. And it would be funny because I would, I'd write things down and I didn't realize
[00:17:43] they were important until I wrote them down. I problem with that and it's like well okay but that's not really how we think of things right there are times when we when
[00:19:01] we're not sure exactly what we think or we're not exactly sure what we feel about something
[00:19:05] and sometimes we need to think it through a it's... Oh, Rod Dreier is a relatively new book. Yeah. Yeah. And there is a... And it's based off the speech that he wrote that... Solzhenitsyn's final letter before he was... Yeah, exactly. And there is a great... There's a great line if you go watch the HBO Chernobyl series.
[00:20:26] Oh.
[00:20:27] When the... First off, it's an out on a computer, somebody can find it.
[00:21:40] There is nothing secure in the world that's typed.
[00:21:43] But I can write whatever I want in my journal.
[00:21:45] And honestly, it's far harder to hack my journal I don't go into the pulpit without a full manuscript. Wait, what? You not having a full manuscript and just kind of firing a little bit? Nope, I don't. I take a full manuscript with me into the pulpit and over the years, you know, I've been doing this for 15 years, you are not the only one who has challenged me to preach with on a
[00:23:01] manuscript.
[00:23:02] But I always go back to it.
[00:23:03] I'll try it.
[00:23:04] I've tried it before.
[00:23:05] I'll try it again at some point.
[00:23:06] I'm sure.
[00:23:07] But I always go back to it. the words on the page as much as I am glancing down to pick up the visual cues about what's coming next or what I wanted to move there. And then there was that classic moment in the Advent sermon series this past year when the, the full. This past year, meaning this was the end of 2020, December, 2022.
[00:24:23] Yes. in grain, right, that writing on the manuscript helps in grain in my brain what it is that I want to say or the process of handwriting a manuscript and often minor hand written entirely where the process of writing in its entirety through that thought process, through that manuscript really does solidify what it is that I want to that. One of the teachers did not like my handwriting, and, you know, fair enough. And I didn't like my handwriting after she said it. And I said, okay, I'm gonna write in all caps, because my mother will tell you, I still don't know what words should be capitalized and shouldn't be capitalized to this day. I mean, I understand, like, I can write list you off, like, oh, it's proper nouns, it played, no, it's like, I get that, but it's, it's,
[00:27:01] that's not always the case,
[00:27:02] and there's sometimes where you, like, anyway,
[00:27:04] moral of the story.
[00:27:05] So I didn't know how to capitalize words properly.
[00:27:07] And so I just started writing in all caps, in small ways with our handwriting. And it's actually one of the only ways that I think I'm thinking about this. Typing isn't like that. Typing doesn't have, when you press a key, it is agnostic in your brain from an artistic standpoint. Whether you press an A or press a B or press a C,
[00:28:20] it is the exact same thing in your brain, right?
[00:28:23] When you write an A or a B or a C,
[00:28:24] that is fundamentally different things, physically. The old typewriter, you had to press the button hard. You had to really, you really had to think through, because you didn't want to make mistakes, because it meant white out potentially starting over. But that also had its advantages in an analogous way, right? That writing has its advantages. It's hard.
[00:29:40] You have to, and then if you're going to write, you have school, I kept buying these really beautiful journals and they're never using them because I couldn't bring myself to write in them because I was worried that I was gonna mess them up, right? It's a funny perspective on writing and journaling, especially, but I think a lot of people hold themselves to an impossible standard of perfection when they journal and they have this idea in their head of what their journal should look like and their journal should be like.
[00:31:00] I think that the best thing anyone can do
[00:31:02] if they're worried about writing in a journal
[00:31:03] is to write a word or two or 10 in the first page A donation of $200 or more gets you some Chufal On-Air Clapping. And a pair of Wisconsin-made wigwam hiking socks. A donation of $1,000 or more gets you thunderous on air clapping. And a hand made Christ in all things leather folio by the MURDI creative company.
[00:32:20] If you want to donate more than that,
[00:32:23] well fly us wherever you want and we will record
[00:32:25] Christ in all things at your chosen location