About me

Hello! I am a 34 year old father of 4. Ages 5, 3, 2 years and 6 months. I have been happily married to my beautiful bride Brina for 6 years and we live in sunny Scottsdale Arizona. I am a caregiver to my now best friend. He has muscular dystrophy, so we spend our day just ‘bro-ing out’ and trying to stay out of trouble. My wife is the music director at our parish and has a set of pipes to rivals the $1,000,000 pipe organ.

We are very blessed to live in a large house that we share with my parents. They help us out immensely and we are able to live a much better (and less crazy) life with a 4-4 child-adult ratio. It is wonderful for the kids to have such a close relationship with their Poppop and Gramma. Multigenerational households were always the norm up until this modern age, we like to think we are going back to tradition.

I am fortunate with my job to have lots of time to read, listen to podcasts, watch movies/shows and work on projects. My most recent project is a Catholic board game about the apostles and disciples. You travel around the Roman provinces baptizing people, building churches, removing heretics while being persecuted and martyred. It is close to being publishable and is a big goal of mine. I also enjoy lifting weights. And most importantly, I love spending time in prayer with our Lord and reflecting on the holy scriptures.

I have been told I am the “strong silent” type. I take great pride in my red beard, hairy chest and back and abundant freckle pattern. I have yet to meet anyone with more freckles than me. I am pretty reserved at first when meeting others but I’ll warm up soon depending on their vibe.

My dad was an Air Force officer and I was born in Germany. We were stationed in the Netherlands, Texas and Italy. We moved to Glenwood Springs, Colorado when I was 10 years old. My dad and mom both worked for Catholic Charities. I grew up playing baseball and football, skiing every weekend and playing way too many video games.

I went to Carroll College in Montana and Fort Lewis College in Colorado where I earned a math degree. I very much enjoyed backpacking and rock climbing during that time period. I had a very short stint at Saint John Vianney seminary in Denver. Then I moved to Phoenix to be a missionary and date my wife who I met on Catholic Match.

I started this Substack to have another creative outlet and hopefully you will get something out of it too. I would love to get to know you too, so please send messages and leave comments!

-Ben Ziemann