The "No Bull Briefing" - The Monthly Newsletter of The Samson Society

Keep Your Eye on the Ball

October is a dangerous month for a man like me.

The baseball postseason is here, college football is in full swing, and the NFL has found its stride. On top of that, we're one month out from the midterm elections. Every screen in the house is offering something to get worked up about. For a guy who has always been good at getting worked up, that is a lot of temptation.

I'll confess something. During my years of active addiction, I was one of the best-informed men in America. I knew the batting averages, the point spreads, the polling numbers, and the latest outrage from whichever politician was annoying me that week. Talk radio and sports radio ran in my car, my office, and my head all day long. I could tell you exactly what the manager should have done in the eighth inning and exactly what was wrong with Washington.

What I couldn't tell you was what was going on in my own life. That part I didn't want to look at.

Looking back, I don't think all that listening was really about sports or politics. It was a hiding place. As long as I was furious about a blown call or a bad vote, I didn't have to think about the lies I was telling, the marriage I was neglecting, or the secret that was slowly eating me alive. I was a passionate man. I just aimed my passion at everything except the things I could actually change.

That's the trick, isn't it? The things we get most worked up about are often the things we control least. My opinion about a referee has never changed the outcome of a game. My vote matters, and I cast it, but it isn't going to swing an election by itself. And a man can find a way to put money on Saturday's game while losing something far more valuable at home: his attention to his wife, his kids, his brothers, and his own soul, one moment at a time.

So here's my suggestion for this October, brothers. Enjoy the games. I'm going to. Pay attention to the issues and go vote. I'm doing that too. But let's be careful about where we spend our passion, because recovery takes all the passion we've got. The daily work of honesty, prayer, and showing up for each other doesn't make the highlight reel, but it's the only game we're actually playing in.

And let's be especially careful with our fellowship. There's nothing wrong with talking sports or politics with your brothers. Some of my best friendships have survived a lot of trash talk. But that conversation can't come first. When we check in with each other, the first questions should still be the real ones: How are you, really? What are you not telling me? What's going on at home? Then we need to shut up and listen to the answer.

Our country is splitting along political lines, and I don't want the Samson Society to do the same. The man across the table from you may vote differently than you do. He may even root for the wrong team. But he's fighting the same battle you are, and you need him. He needs you too. That bond is worth far more than any argument you might win.

I don't want to tune out the world. I just never want to lose focus again. I've been the guy who knew every score and missed his own life, and I'm not going back.

Keep your eye on the ball, brothers. The right ball.

— Nate

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Don't Watch This One from the Stands

If you're looking for something worth getting passionate about this October, here it is. The 2026 Samson Summit is October 23–25 at Faholo Conference Center in Grass Lake, Michigan, with an optional bonus day starting Thursday, October 22.

John Lynch will teach four sessions, joined by Sam Black, Aaron Porter, and me. There will be small groups, walks with a brother, campfires, and a Saturday-night concert with Josh Bales. Lodging and all meals are included. Most of all, it's a weekend away from the noise, face to face with men who are fighting the same fight you are.

Last day to register to join us in person is Monday, October 12. That's days away, not weeks. Don't wait.

Register for the Samson Summit today

Too far to travel? Join the livestream, presented by Covenant Eyes, and receive 5 free bonus pre-recorded workshops. Registration closes for the virtual livestream on October 21.

Join the Livestream

Worried about cost? Partial scholarships of 25%, 50%, or 75% are available, so money shouldn't keep you home. Request a scholarship here. 

And if you're able, you can help a brother by funding a scholarship.

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A Bigger Table: Imagining the Samson Council

A few weeks ago, I asked for volunteers to help us think through the formation of a Samson Council. A lot of you raised your hands—which was encouraging, although it created the pleasant problem of having more volunteers than chairs around the virtual table.

The Working Group

I wanted to keep the actual Working Group small enough to have a real conversation, so after checking everyone’s availability I selected nine men, shooting for a mixture of virtual and in-person meeting experience, North American and European perspectives, longtime Pirate Monks and some newer voices. Those men are: Jamie Manship, Keith Hudgins, Spencer Morris, Dave Otto, Don Williamson, Mark Garratt, Mark Whitlock, Greg Redmond, and Luke Ramsay.

I’ll serve as convener. This group will meet for the first time on October 18, via Zoom.

The Consultation Group

Just as important, I asked the rest of the design volunteers to serve on a larger Consultation Group that will react to the smaller group’s ideas, point out things we’ve missed, and occasionally save us from ourselves. David Gregg, Storm Myer, Bill Musall, Kyle Free, Jeremy Young, Andrew Ralph, Darren Hoelzer, Nathaniel Pinson, Sidney Sherrill, Justin Chizmar, Neil Bergeron, Blake Hendrickson, Lorne Williams, David Clark, Paul Clay, and Luke Stevens will serve on that group.

Many thanks to every one of these men for volunteering their time and perspective.

If I have overlooked or forgotten a volunteer, please shoot me a text at 615-438-8308.

One important clarification: none of these men has just been appointed to the Samson Council. There isn’t a Council yet. The working group’s job is to create the initial design for one—what it should do, whom it should represent, how members should be selected, and how it can give the Society a meaningful voice without creating another layer of bureaucracy.

This is a short-term assignment and the beginning of a process, not the end of one. The working group will consult with the larger team as ideas develop, and we’ll keep the whole Society informed along the way.

We’re not disappearing into a room with white smoke coming out of a chimney. We’re just trying to figure out, together, what a genuinely representative Samson Council ought to look like.

--Nate Larkin

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Exclusive Opportunity for the Men of Samson Society 

LifeWorks is hosting a 3-Day Men’s Clinical Intensive for Sexual Brokenness on November 13–15, 2026, led by Roane Hunter, Sr., LPC, CSAT-S, and Roe Hunter, LPC, CSAT.

This is focused clinical work, not simply another retreat. LifeWorks describes the three-day intensive as providing the equivalent of approximately 8–12 months of weekly counseling and as a way to jumpstart or deepen recovery. Participants also complete pre-work assessments through IITAP.

Dates: November 13–15, 2026
Cost: $2,000, including lodging and meals
Deposit: $500 non-refundable
Payment plans are available

This does not replace the ongoing community and recovery work of Samson Society. It is an opportunity for men who are ready to go deeper into the wounds, behaviors, and relational patterns underneath sexual brokenness.

If you keep finding yourself running into the same wall in recovery, this may be worth considering.

Information and registration

Please feel free to share this with another Samson brother who may benefit.

Is It Worth It? / Wiener Think / Realizing Recovery Is One's True Identity

It is worth it (for your wiener's sake)?  Specifically, is it worth it for that wiener dangling between your legs?  Circumstances being what they are, often times, in light of the explicit pursuit, it most definitely is.

Read on.

I attended the 2026 Mississippi Book Festival a few weekends ago, and had the privilege to end the day listening (I was in the minority as a male attendee) to Ms. Belle Burden discuss here runaway tome, Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage.  She detailed (read aloud, for perhaps the umpteenth time) a portion of her memoir that is one of the most popular.  That being the verbiage detailing the public (to his wife & two daughters) declaration that her husband was no longer happily married and therefore demanding a divorce.  There within the Methodist Church Sanctuary, her amplified voice released the dry-as-a-bone few paragraphs to the audience as the moderator's countenance winced dramatically.  I must say that it was a heady, clinical descriptor, beautifully summarizing her and her children's now difficult plight as their shafted position of rejection instantaneously took root.

Towards the end of her session, Ms. Burden was asked (audience Q & A) if she'd ever marry again.  She stated only if "he and I could live in separate apartments".  The resulting laughter was no doubt nervously somber / low key.  

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Yesterday, (10/3) YouTube's algorithm brought me to a West Hollywood ("The Gay Therapist") therapist who was interviewing a young man (supposedly a former Mormon) who'd painfully, despondently, victoriously(!/?/!) embraced the homosexual lifestyle.  The therapist was totally oblivious towards the Mormon church (as are many who're outsiders therein), therefore his interrogation was laughably inept.

What was clear was how much the young (very handsome) ex-Mormon had walked away from in light of his gay horniness / wiener, and not only in relation to his church but his heritage / pedigree.  He made that exceedingly clear.  For he proudly articulated how faithful he'd been to his beliefs / Mormon culture (graduating from BYU, undergoing a 2-year mission) until he wasn't.  

But hey, he did get to have gay sex...in the end.  And arguably, there's no more intense (wiener) sexual "lifestyle" than the gay one (particularly when you're young, horny and very physically attractive).

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Feeling that tingle or dick itch, as I like to call it, is a powerful motivator.  Think of it as wiener think.

Whether you abandon your wife / children whilst residing within your multi-million-dollar (second) home on Martha's Vineyard, your faith / heritage as a deeply religious man, squander your conscience / professional credentials as an employer / employee and on and on, the answer to the question is a resounding YES! outside of the ethos of who you truly are as a man.

But what's at work here?

I believe in all three of these cases, mundanity plays a sizable role along with the (often) oversimplified risk / reward dynamic.  And who can forget the unequivocal male need for respect (both self & otherwise)?

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The Heart single (Brigade album) from the '90s proclaims "All I Want To Do Is Make Love To You".  The song, written for Don Henley (by Mutt Lange), makes much more sense therein versus being performed via Ann & Nancy Wilson.  Why?

Because it's worth it for men to behave this way.  100% worth it.  Even if they have to fabricate the desire (hire a prostitute).

Women, on the other hand, embrace security.  Feelings of security don't emanate from the clitoris.  And no woman (in her right mind) would stop to pick up a hitchhiker at night, during a rainstorm, prior to taking him to a motel to just fuck before slipping out the next morning to continue forward with her life.

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Whilst serving as an employee, whether in the private or public sector, so long as gay porn was available for me to dabble in throughout the workday, I would make time to consume those images.  Why?  

I did this for the same (but perhaps, arguably "safer") reason(s) the men cited above did what they did.

Except in my case, the images were so stunningly, illusively vicarious.  Particularly whilst looking back on my middle-school years and how they served to bridge between the then (non-explicit) and now (explicit).  And oh my gosh were they ever explicit!  

As such, the pull felt impossible to resist.  And yes, I hoped to get caught just as Mr. Davis anticipated making that jaw-dropping speech to his then attorney wife, Belle Burden / the young Mormon BYU student burst forth via all that pent up homo-energy.

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What's really frightening though about all of this wiener thinking / neediness is how much a gamble it is to deduce which, if any, of these men will regain the disciplined self-control that separates us / them from the four-legged kind of God's creation.   

And what might bring that about, ultimately?

I'll share one thing with you that absolutely won't.  Anger.  Low, simmering anger.  Towards others, God, oneself.  

Ms. Burden's tome certainly didn't / won't help matters between these ex-eses.  Nor will sitting in for YouTube interviews with (clearly) ill-prepared / deeply biased interviewers.  

An immense, solidly gut-wrenching sense of defeat is what did it for me.  Combined with someone I deeply respected looking me straight in the eye and passing demonical judgement.  In other words, there was no cheering section for Rob / proverbially optimistic naysayers.  I was utterly alone and without hope.  

And yet, my wiener think really hadn't resulted in any major relational injury.  I knew this deep down.  I hadn't physically cheated nor pivoted away from my beliefs.  No one got hurt but Rob, in the end.  But therein lay the deep-seated singular finality of it all.  For hurting Rob wasn't / isn't at all easy (it's one of the primary strengths enabling me to become an architect).  Until September 2013 rolled around.

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Last night, I dreamed I was back in architecture school, yet the building was not the one I haunted either in Starkville or Jackson (MSU:  '90 - '95).  This was a new space with unfamiliar, much younger (perhaps I was young too) colleagues.  And the dream was so very vivid that whilst awaking, I was so very relieved to realize that "it was just a dream!" (I felt woefully unprepared to go back to school).

And I have these sorts of dreams too, very often, about returning to my former (private sector) architecture firm employer ('96 - '06).  Again, I literally feel as if I'm choking on the panic I'm experiencing therein due to the vividity and familiarity.

Why?

Because it was just a huge misunderstanding.  Somehow there'd been a reverse time jump (or somesuch), and here I was again. 

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Samson Society, ultimately, became my mistress.  My relationship with this ministry was / has become tantamount to every gay sexual voyeuristic consumption only sanctimoniously / properly filtered through a Judeo-Christian hierarchy (The Fact, The Path, The Pact).  

Returning to that state of immense loneliness is such the ill-equipped notion that I'd not even know where to begin.  

Get Ready for the 2026 Samson Summit: Shirts, Journals, Volunteering & More

 

Get Ready for the 2026 Samson Summit: Merch, Maps, Must-Knows & More! The 2026 Samson Summit is almost here, and we can’t wait to welcome you to Michigan! To help you prepare for a meaningful weekend of brotherhood, connection, and grace, we’ve gathered everything you need to know in one place—from the Summit schedule, camp address and maps to available activities, packing essentials, official Summit merchandise, and opportunities to serve alongside your brothers. GET YOUR 2026 SUMMIT GEAR Want to take a piece of the Summit home with you? The official 2026 Samson Summit shirt is available now featuring this year’s Summit design. And this year, we’ve added something new: a 2026 Summit journal featuring the Written in Grace graphic. Bring it along to capture notes from sessions, reflections, conversations, and whatever else surfaces throughout the weekend. JOIN THE SUMMIT SPACE IN THE APP The Summit doesn’t have to wait until you arrive in Michigan! Join the 2026 Summit space in the Samson app to stay connected and up to date as we count down to the start of the Summit. We’ll use the Summit space to share important updates, schedules, announcements, and everything else Summit-related prior to our time together as well as the hub you utilize during the Summit. It’s also a great place to introduce yourself, connect with other men who are attending, and start building brotherhood before the weekend even begins. Join the Summit space today, say hello, and start connecting with your brothers! JOIN THE SUMMIT SPACE A GIFT FROM COVENANT EYES TO YOU Our friends at Covenant Eyes are helping make this year’s Summit possible, including sponsoring the 2026 Virtual Samson Summit. As a special thank-you for attending the Summit in person, Covenant Eyes is also providing attendees with a promotional code for 30 days of free access to the Victory digital accountability platform. Just use the promo code samson26 to take advantage of this special offer. COME EARLY. STAY LONGER. START THE SUMMIT TOGETHER. Why wait until Friday to start connecting? Join us Thursday for an extra day of fun, fellowship, and time with the guys before the official Summit gets underway. Please note: Thursday is NOT included with your regular Summit registration. It is an optional add-on and requires a separate registration—but adding it to your existing registration is easy! Simply return to the Summit registration page and select the “Thursday Only” option to add Thursday to your plans. ADD THURSDAY TO YOUR REGISTRATION Not sure whether you already registered for Thursday? Reach out to us! We’re happy to check your registration and let you know. Come a day early, settle in, reconnect with old friends, meet some new ones, and enjoy some extra time together before Written in Grace officially begins. Please Note: the last day to add Thursday to your registration is October 12. SCHEDULE OF EVENTS Thursday, October 22 (Optional Early Arrival Day) 3:00-5:00 pm - Early Arrival Check-in 5:00 - 6:00 pm - Dinner 6:30-7:30 pm - Samson Meeting 7:30-9:30 pm - Fellowship & Fires 9:30 pm - Midnight - Late-night Fellowship Friday, October 23 (Bonus Morning for Early Arrivals) 8:00 -9:00 am - Breakfast 9:15 - 10:15 am - Group Session 10:15 - Noon - Group Walk Noon - 1:00 pm - Lunch 1:00 - 3:00 pm - Free Time & Recreation 3:00 - 5:00 pm - Official Samson Summit Check-In 5:00 - 6:00 pm - Dinner 6:30 - 7:15 pm - Welcome Session 7:30 - 8:15 pm - Session 1 with John Lynch 8:30 - 9:30 pm - Personal Work & Small Groups 9:30 pm - Midnight - Fellowship & Fires Saturday, October 24 7:00 - 8:00 am - Coffee & Morning Hospitality 8:00 - 8:40 am - Breakfast 8:50 - 9:45 am - Session 2 with John Lynch 9:45 - 10:45 am - Personal Work & Small Groups 11:00 am - Noon - Session 3 with John Lynch Noon - 1:00 pm - Lunch 1:00 - 4:00 pm - Recreation & Free Time 1:00 - 4:00 pm - Indoor pool and hot tub available (access is exclusive to Samson Society men) 1:00 - 2:00 pm - Optional Session with Sam Black 2:15 - 3:00 pm - Optional Walk with Landon White 4:15 - 5:00 pm - Session 4 with John Lynch 5:00 - 6:00 pm - Dinner 6:15 - 7:15 pm - Live Conversation & Q&A with Nate Larkin, Aaron Porter, and Sam Black 7:30 - 8:45 pm - Concert with Josh Bales 9:00 - 10:00 pm - Optional Samson Meeting & Small Groups 10:00 pm - Midnight - Fellowship & Fires Sunday, October 25 7:00 - 8:00 am - Coffee, Morning Hospitality, and Early Pack-Up 8:00 - 9:00 am - Breakfast 9:45 - 11:15 am - Final Session with John Lynch 11:15 am - Noon - Final Goodbyes and Departure Preparation Noon - Bon Voyage! CAMP DETAILS Faholo Conference Center is located 67 miles West of downtown Detroit off I-94 in Grass Lake, Michigan. Camp Address: 3000 Mt Hope Road, Grass Lake, MI 49240  Map of Camp Faholo THINGS TO BRING As you prepare for a weekend of fellowship, meaningful conversations, and experiencing your story through the lens of grace, here's a helpful packing list to make sure you have everything you need. Clothing & Personal Essentials Comfortable, casual clothing for sessions and fellowship Layers for cooler Michigan mornings and evenings (Jacket, sweatshirt, or fleece) Rain jacket or waterproof outerwear Comfortable walking shoes or sneakers Toiletries and personal hygiene items Prescription medications and daily essentials Personal snacks, especially if you have dietary restrictions Reusable water bottle Electronics & Sleep Essentials Phone and charging cables Portable power bank CPAP or other sleep machines, including necessary tubing, supplies, and power cords Earplugs or sleep mask if you're a light sleeper Small flashlight or headlamp Lodging With Us? Here Is What Is Provided! Good news! Every individual registered for camp lodging will be provided with the following: Pillow Pillowcase Sheet Blanket Bath towel Washcloth There's no need to pack these items unless you prefer to bring your own! You may also want an additional blanket if you tend to get cold at night. RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES Faholo provides an exciting variety of indoor and outdoor Basic Recreation activities. The camp provides all the equipment needed for the activities listed below, but you are welcome to bring your own gear for unique games and competitions. Indoor Recreation Activities Basketball Volleyball Pickleball Fitness Room Game Tables Board Games Indoor pool and hot tub (available only for Samson men on Saturday from 1:00 - 4:00 pm) Outdoor Recreation Activities 9 Square Gaga Pit 4 Way volleyball Pickleball Horseshoes Basketball Do not hesitate to reach out by responding to this email with any questions you may have. We look forward to seeing you soon in Michigan! View this email in your browser.