Who is Aidan Hennebry?

Beginning anywhere else would be a grave mistake. As you could ever know me, I am only one half of a person, and my other half is my darling wife Leanne.

We got hitched in 2014 and have since started a family (more on that in a bit). In some ways Leanne is my opposite: she is calm in all circumstances, she is easygoing, she stresses about nothing and worries about very little. Yet in other ways we are a pair: we both love food, travelling, documenting the life of our family, talking, and our siblings (among countless other similarities).

We sometimes daydream about buying a travel trailer so we can load up our kids and see North America. We’ll see if it ever happens, but it’s a dream we’ve had for a few years now.

We also both love Chick-fil-A, Target, Longhorn Steakhouse, Chilis, and just about any other combination of American shopping and food (If you know what Wawa is, you know another love of mine).

Leanne makes me the man I am. To try to summarize our marriage in this confined space is almost insulting to the amount all that our shared days have given me.

In so many ways, I owe my life to this woman. I won the lottery.

I can’t touch on the aspects of my identity without at least acknowledging this briefly.

Photography was my first endeavour to make money on my own. Leanne encouraged me to put prices on my website, so I did, and that led to Hush Hush Photography which we ran from 2014 - 2021. In that time, I picked up video which has changed my career for the better. The whole time I was doing Hush Hush, I did graphic design on the side as well. No more desire to be a designer for a living, though.

I became self-employed in September of 2016 and was until October of 2021. It was a ride. All my life I believed I wanted to work for myself (I thought everyone did) and for that time, it was the right choice. Being self-employed gave me so much, and taught me so much about business and people.

In the Fall of 2021, I jumped into being the Marketing Manager at Boshart Industries. The team I work with is incredible and the opportunity to be in such a specialized role allows me to explore more of marketing in a way that being self-employed couldn’t. I am having a blast being an employee again.

My mind is always working. I don’t have a “nothing box” in my brain like most men do. I can’t.stop.thinking. about trying to be better than I was last week.

Of all the creative endeavours I have, writing might be the most pure. Or at least parts of it.

Towards the end of high school, I began creative writing (deeply introspective short stories told in unconventional narratives) as a means of sorting through the many thoughts in my head. I’ve done this off and on since then; going through periods of writing once or twice a day, to once or twice a month.

When Leanne and I started dating, she bought me my first typewriter which had been a dream of mine for some time. I had always wanted a typewriter purely because I thought they were cool. I didn’t realize how accessible a hobby it really was. I use my collection of typewriters weekly; primarily for writing letters to friends, though I still jot down a to-do list or a piece of prose as well.

My love of cinematography and Hollywood naturally led me back to the art of screenwriting, and this year I’ve written 2 of my own feature-length screenplays. Purely for fun, though, as I have absolutely no desire to work in Hollywood professionally. The first screenplay is a love story about a couple who are a week away from divorcing but go on one last trip to Ireland together and possibly end up rekindling their love. The second screenplay is a bank heist set in a grimy industrial town, centred around a protagonist who wants to make his girl’s life better, and help out his friends along the way.

I’ve had marketing blogs off and on over the years of being self-employed, but only in the past few months have I felt inexplicably compelled to share my knowledge more frequently and urgently. I have dreams to write a book (business-related, in addition to any sort of anthology I hope to compose someday). Before I get around to a book though, I love the immediacy and practicality of a blog for publishing strong content and immediately allowing others to make use of it.

As evidenced by these photos, I intend to make my kids as big a fan of writing as I am. Whatever form they choose, I’ll be thrilled to spur them on. Currently, they love jamming the keys and pulling out the ribbon. I’ll take what I can get.

You can call me a theologian insomuch that anyone who has a thought about God is a theologian. It would be more accurate to call me a Christian who actively seeks to learn more about scripture, church history, and the beliefs that shape my life.

I gave my life to Christ at a youth conference in 2010. It changed me completely.

I am a Christian because I read the scriptures and find them to be true when I put them into practice. I am a Christian because I believe that we, as a humanity, are inherently sinners and broken by nature. I am a Christian because I felt the Holy Spirit enter my heart when I felt God beckoning me closer towards him. The hunger I had for something bigger than myself in that moment is something I believe all human beings are born with.

One key distinction I’d like to make here: I am by no means any “better” of a person because of my belief in Jesus. I am just as sinful and flawed as I always have been. But because I love God and am thankful for my salvation, I am deeply moved to live out the gospel, spread the good news, and seek to continually try to improve myself.

A lot of people who have a “problem with Jesus / the church” often just have problems with other Christians, and not Jesus himself. This is because we are still just as screwed up as anyone else. It is a paradox that we are held to a higher standard but just as flawed as ever.

Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread.

If you have questions about my beliefs, I would love to answer them. Please don’t hesitate to ask.

I don’t have all the answers, but I believe I have a few.