Thankyou for choosing Starbucks. This is Matt, how can I help you?

nothing but skibbies

I'm sitting here a the parking lot checking my e-mail. It's free here and selling latte's part-time doesn't pay for cable internet. My housemate Andrew and I do this on occasion. Sit in my truck with his labtop enjoying Panera Bread's wifi signal without the disgustingly healthy smell of gourmet bagels and over priced soup. It works...but it only happens once a month. So this is me apologizing for not e-mailing you, posting pictures of me repeling off a forty foot rock face on the top a Applacian mountain, or dersciping to you how exihilirating it is to jump in a creek (specifically one called Wilson's Creek just outside of the sweet college mountain town of Boone, NC) in nothing but your skibbies. Sorry. I'm trying to get a second job so I can do better. Much to say later (I hope)...Matt

...realize life while you live it, every, every minute" (from some play call Our Town).

grass stains

I'm in Kernersville, North Carolina having a good time.

Though, I gotta be honest, the grass isn’t greener here. I mean it is, but it isn’t. There was no grass in Lubbock, and a lot less that is green in Ohio, but I miss Texas and I miss home. And I think that a good thing, not bad, for missing something means it is worth missing.

But the thing I’m learning is this…it’s not about the grass (or the lack there of). At least not in the way I used to see it. And by grass I mean this perfect place where we think we ought to be and usually don’t feel like we are at.

There is something everywhere. It may be the grass here or sky somewhere else. Literally and figuratively. There is no better stage for lightning shows, nor greater canvas to set the sun than the big blue sky of Texas (at least in my small but growing world). The air tastes better in Colorado. I’m not sure why, but it must have to do with mountains. And I don’t care what people say about Ohio, I can’t imagine a good Christmas without having to shovel the drive. The truth is, there is something “greener” about every place…and also every people. That’s what I mean about grass figuratively.

There is something magic about the staff I worked with my senior year at IWU and my times with Levi. I’ve never been a part of community that sweet. And may never be again be. But that’s ok, because “that it will never come again is what makes it so sweet” (Emily Dickinson). There isn’t a better friend than Nick. If the Lord of the Rings were my adventure and I were Frodo, he would be my Sam. And Cooper. I laugh so hard with that dude...till my head hurts. I miss going to the drive-in almost every weekend with my fam in Texas. I could go for speed Scrabble with anyone right now, but with Mom and Dad if I could choose. Especially when my mother makes the case that words like “baggirl” are really in the dictionary.

Really, I could go on for days. I feel very rich with people right now. My grass is green. And I pray that someday God lets me write books, not because I necessarily think I have a lot to say that already hasn’t been said, but because I love it and most of all want to write words in my books, just a few pages in like: “To my sister Minde, who’s courage and joy inspired this story”. Part of me longs to have a stage, longs to be famous, not for the sake of being famous, but so I may give a speech to thank all the people who have made my life worth living.

And to thank the one behind it all. To God, the Maker of grass and mountains, and the One behind every thing and person “greener”. His glory is everywhere. That is, I mean, his beauty, laughter, goodness, love—all the things that make life sweet.

Think about your yard. Is it green?

I hope you see that it is, just a shade of it at least. And if you do see that it is, I hope that your cloths are stained with its cooler.

Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy...

I made everyone an ornament. Just print, cut, and hang. Merry Christmas!

a little church with big love

I used to be "youth pastor" at a little church in Bryant, Indiana. A small church with big love out in the middle of the middle of nowhere on some road marked 650. My favorite road in the fall. There is a quarter mile section where the trees hold hands across the street, stretching their limbs to create a tunnel of browns, yellows, and oranges.

Go down the road a few miles over a stomach dropping hill and around a few Amish buggies and you’ll see it, a little white church, slightly smaller than the size of an old farm house, with a gravel parking lot, an old bell, and small yard with two wooden crosses (the third fell down a couple years ago).

It’s the kind of church that fights to keep its doors open and heater running (in fact this past Sunday while I was there they had a vote to keep it open or shut it down), but always seems to make it, whether the toilet flushes every Sunday or not. And it survives because of its people. They are stubborn, a little for tradition and familiarity, but mostly for what they believe that building can give, for what that building has given them.

The people that love best are the ones that have to fight for it.

And their biggest fight may be the one to give in and shut the doors. They are preparing for that, while hoping they don’t have to, but realizing that no matter what happens, Sardinia Missionary Church is bigger than a building.

It was good to be back for church this past Sunday, good see the old youth room in the basement still with aluminum foil walls (it fit the budget and was kind of a joke with the church name, designed to look like a sardine can), good to make music with the Frey's, and good to talk to the Horns.

But it was very good to throw snowballs at Tom and Colton. Cameron, Zach, and I tried to take their fort in a game of capture the flag in the snow after church. We played for hours. My New Balances were soaked along with my four pairs of socks long before Sidney joined us and we decided to go sledding. Because of that, my nose is sniffling as I write the post. But I don’t care, because only people who live life get sick. I lived a lot this last week and for that I welcome a little cold.

After the snow games me and my friends (I almost wrote "kids that used to be in my youth group", but that seemed so impersonal and insufficient. They are more than that. Why does the church put such dumb labels on people? I refuse to be a "youth pastor" and don’t want a "youth group". I want to be a friend. I want bothers and sisters. The church is family not some business or organization that categorizes people...) we went to the Ritz, an old two screen movie theater where you can get a ticket, coke, bag of popcorn, and a candy bar for well under ten bucks. There we saw The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which I’d pay the fortune it costs at a cinema to it see again.

The next day I went to Jay County High School and had lunch with Cameron, Tom, Zack, Colton, Matt, and Carrie. I miss pizza boats and chocolate milk in a tiny carton. Between the office sign-in sheet and the cafeteria I managed to get yelled at by two teachers (some things never change). Once for not wearing the big red visitor’s name tag they gave me (the lady in the office never said I had to wear the thing) and once for wearing a hat.