Calicem Dulcem, Calicem Terra

been a while, sorry about that.

I’ve always liked family mottos. James Bond has “Orbis non Sufficit” (The world is not enough); Starks have “Winter is Coming;” Targaryen’s have “Fire and Blood.” It’s always interesting what a family founder ages ago felt needed to be known about their family.

Growing up in the flowers household I actually introduced what the three of us consider to be our motto: “Cup of Sugar, Cup of Dirt”. It was something I heard in an interview with John C. McGinley (Dr. Cox) from Scrubs. He was describing the relationship of the lead character (Zach Braff’s JD) and his reluctant mentor. He’d encourage him, build him up, push him in the right direction and then turn around and pick on him or mock him. In our family, it is clear that we love each other. None of us doubt that of one another, but continuously we make efforts to ensure nobody gets too full of themselves.

While that is a useful summary of our small family unit, I was curious what our real motto would be. I kept trying and researching. Finally, I found this “Flores Curat Deus” or “God takes care of the Flowers.” It’s a reference to Matthew 6, where Jesus calls upon those listening to consider the flowers of the field. How beautiful they are and how fleeting they are and yet how much God cares for them. His point is that we have no cause to worry.

This passage was one of the keys in our family making through the months and years following the divorce. There were plenty of things to fear: losing our home, losing my job or worse dad losing his; but the call of Christ is to live a life that is different, one that trusts God, especially in those moments when you pull into the driveway, coasting on empty, just glad not to find that the bank came and changed the locks.

Some of you out there are worried, because times are tough, because you don’t know what to expect day to day. Will you lose your job tomorrow? Your house? Will your power be cut off? Your significant leave you? whatever it is, know that it’s not meant to be easy. It’s not meant to be carried on your own. So, share your burdens, lean on others. and help carry theirs. Most of all don’t worry, because worry (like hatred, envy, and so many other inclinations) is an emotion that only takes.

Love, Trust, Hope… those are things that give.

Philippians 2:6-11 (the reason for the season)

This passage is one of those dearest to my heart. In it weighs the fullness of who Christ is, what He did, and why.

He is God in the flesh. He descended from His place at the height of Creation, an existence infinitely glorious, and He dwelt with us. Though He could have come as a ruler, He arrived instead the helpless babe in a manger. Though He could have claimed a harsh and dominating mastery over His creation, He instead served them. He fed them, cleaned their feet, healed them, wept with them and taught them. Further still when the time came He suffered the greatest shames the Enemy could prepare, dying lonely, beaten and broken as many jeered and mock the life He had lived, even as His friends and followers watched in fearful silence. All of this He did first for the Glory of God the Father.

But in that moment, when Darkness seemed to have won its long game, something beyond the fears of Death itself came to be. For He remained not in the tomb, after three days He rose again in newness of life. In doing so He undid the power of Sin and Death. Thus was He exalted to the highest place once more. Conqueror and servant, He sits enthroned in His Glory, ever deserving of endless praise from all that has been created by His hands.

That is why I rejoice today and every day, for Christ is King.

“[Christ], being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

One year (a poem for Gretchen 12/02/2013)

One year without a phone call.
One year without a letter
One year without that loving voice
That makes it all seem better.

One year without a goofy joke
One year without a wild tale
One year without that cough
That showed that she was frail

One year with no chuckling
And one year we’ve been without
It’s been one year you that have been gone
We mourn, yet must go on.

I miss Granny, that beautiful soul’s influence on my life and the kindness she so often shared. But her absence has given us a charge, a responsibility. A person like her walked in love and viewed each person with an affection so true and pure that it helped to restore the dignity God purposes each person to have in Him. We must do like she did. Love people and in doing so show them God.

My favorite Tolkien Quotation

“We all long for [Eden], and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most humane,is still soaked with the sense of ‘exile’. If you come to think of it, your (very just) horror at the stupid murder of the hawk, and your obstinate memory of this ‘home’ of yours in an idyllic hour (when often there is an illusion of the stay of time and decay and a sense of gentle peace) are derived from Eden. As far as we can go back the nobler part of the human mind is filled with the thoughts of sibb, peace and goodwill, and with the thought of its loss.”

Thanksgiving in Solitude

Today will be the first Thanksgiving I spend alone. Not for lack of effort by friends to invite me to their family gathering hither and yon, but with constraints of time and a budget stretched thin by travel, here we are. I have Planes, Trains and Automobiles ready to play, a mug of cocoa in my hand and a pecan pie that’s begging to be sliced.

I am not writing this in any effort to bemoan my situation, however. No, I have spent many a Thanksgiving surrounded by people and yet feeling utterly alone. Not to mention the statistics we are so often reminded of this time of year, all focused on the rise in stress related to family. So I know that the gathering in and of itself means little. I am writing, because despite being alone and my only holiday dish being a desert purchased at Walmart, I am truly thankful.

I am thankful for my friends, both new and old, who continue to enrich my life. There are those who have been by my side since grade school, those who have seen me develop into the man I have today even from my earliest moments. There are those I knew in later years of school, the few I remain in contact with, and they were there during one of my life’s darkest periods, and I thank them for their presence and support. There are the countless faces and hearts I associate with my alma mater, Harding. In a very unique way, God used you to show me something I had nearly forgotten, that by grace I am valuable. A few were there for the whole collegiate enterprise, others arrived in the later chapters, but they all have shown me that there can be good in one’s present, no matter their past. There are those I’ve come to know in Bentonville. Whether at work or church, all of you have blessed my time in this new place. I am learning a great deal. Being stretched and made to grow both in my career and in my walk with God. The faith community in which I find myself is one that cannot be undervalued, and I couldn’t ask for more.

FInally, there is my family. Perhaps it is most because of you that I feel okay with my Thanksgiving of Solitude. Without you there could be no me. Nothing nearly so close to what I am anyhow. Because of you, I have learned what it means to care and laugh and cry and hurt and rejoice and mourn. I have learned from you (and because of you) how to lean on God and the fellowship he provides for us.

I am thankful for each and everyone of you, not because you are perfect, but because by you I know the One who is.

So feel no sadness at my holiday hermitage, I surely feel none. For I know that all around this country and world there are people who have been weaved into my life by Him, and that calls to mind one of my favorite verses in all of scripture:

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy.” 
-Phil 1:3-4

Happy Thanksgiving,

-Matthew

A sign of healing

This weekend I saw my father get remarried. I’ve mentioned to several people that I was going down to Mobile for this event and I was met with a variety of reactions, but in truth the variety seems to be mostly the result of how well a person knows my family situation.

I do not here intend to rehash every facet of the events of my parents divorce, but before I go on I would like to note a few things that inform this moment in the life of Joe Flowers. The first is that I once asked him, if he ever thought he would remarry; each time he told me no. Time and again that subject came up in one form or another and each time it seemed to be met with the same resistance. Each conversation concluded that the grand arrangement of Marriage had been spoiled for him by divorce. Though he had dated a few times since then and even held a relation ship or two, that never seemed to sway his response.

The second point of note is that I have only ever seen my father cry three times that I can recall. The first was at his father’s funeral. The second came when one of his best friends found himself in the throws of divorce. The final time was in a moment when his own divorce and all that came along with it weighed on him so heavily he could not keep it in. Only those few times and all of them in great sorrow.

The final point I wish to make clear is that though Joe Flowers is by no means stoic, I also do not know him to be a man of much emotional expression. Again, only thrice in my life had I known him to feel such grief that it manifested in tears, and rarely had I ever seen him flare up with any sort of real rage. In fact there is only one emotion he is given to let flow freely: happiness. That is the way of the Flowers family I think, or rather it is the way my sister and I have learned to be from watching him. To catch us crying or in profound rage is rare, particularly by contrast to catching us joking around and laughing.

The wedding had proceeded much this way. As we moved about making final preparations we joked and quoted movie and television lines to one another. With each batch of friends who entered the church came jokes, stories and laughter.The tales moved through the many phases of my father’s life, but each came back to the heart of dad’s character. He is a person who enjoys a good joke and a good story. The sort who sees the value in a good hearty laugh. When a delay was needed for the bride to complete her preparations I had no fear, because as I poked my head inside I could see my father holding court for the gathered crowd. They were mostly unaware of the postponing of the event, because they had such delightful company in the jovial man I call my father. Even as the service began he entered through the back of the church and threw his arms open wide, like a great leader expecting applause. He cracked wise about the bigger ring belonging to his bride rather than himself. and at one point made a goofy face at me as we stood up front.

Then as he spoke his vows, his voice cracked. For a moment I glimpsed, or rather heard, the tears. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I’ve known the man for 24 years and never could I have expected it. But even as my own eyes watered, I smiled. I had worried (now and then) that maybe he didn’t take this seriously, that the full weight of the moment was lost on him, but oh, how wrong had I been.

He knew this was momentous. He knew this was important, and I think deep down, he knew this was a sign. More than having met a very lovely woman, it was a sign that he had been healed. Through many hard roads my father’s heart had been hardened, but I think in that moment, he truly felt the healing that God had provided.

In the group at church, we’ve discussed the idea of living in the Kingdom of God here on the Earth. We’ve talked about how what Jesus came and did was but a taste of what was to come. How his actions were the sign of this new Kingdom. I firmly believe that what I saw is a glimpse of the healing that comes in the Kingdom. It is as the Psalmist says, “[The Lord] heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”

Today, I am very thankful for what God has done in healing the hurts my father has known.

Pennsylvania Newspaper Apologizes 150 Years After Gettysburg Address

Books I Read

In what may be longest-coming newspaper retraction in American history, The Patriot News, based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has apologized for lambasting President Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address, delivered nearly 150 years ago (as of November 19, 2013):

Seven score and ten years ago, the forefathers of this media institution brought forth to its audience a judgment so flawed, so tainted by hubris, so lacking in the perspective history would bring, that it cannot remain unaddressed in our archives.

We write today in reconsideration of “The Gettysburg Address,” delivered by then-President Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the greatest conflict seen on American soil. Our predecessors, perhaps under the influence of partisanship, or of strong drink, as was common in the profession at the time, called President Lincoln’s words “silly remarks,” deserving “a veil of oblivion,” apparently believing it an indifferent and altogether ordinary message, unremarkable in eloquence and uninspiring…

View original post 136 more words

Pennsylvania Newspaper Apologizes 150 Years After Gettysburg Address

Books I Read

In what may be longest-coming newspaper retraction in American history, The Patriot News, based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, has apologized for lambasting President Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address, delivered nearly 150 years ago (as of November 19, 2013):

Seven score and ten years ago, the forefathers of this media institution brought forth to its audience a judgment so flawed, so tainted by hubris, so lacking in the perspective history would bring, that it cannot remain unaddressed in our archives.

We write today in reconsideration of “The Gettysburg Address,” delivered by then-President Abraham Lincoln in the midst of the greatest conflict seen on American soil. Our predecessors, perhaps under the influence of partisanship, or of strong drink, as was common in the profession at the time, called President Lincoln’s words “silly remarks,” deserving “a veil of oblivion,” apparently believing it an indifferent and altogether ordinary message, unremarkable in eloquence and uninspiring…

View original post 136 more words

Writing

When you write, and you leave nothing in your heart unwritten, what you are left with is page after page of naked, vulnerability.

I was struggling with writer’s block, took some advice and just started writing.

What came out scared me so much I stopped. Not because it was dark or brilliant but because what I saw was an unfiltered look into myself. As the story grew in my mind I felt a dread about where these characters were going, because they are a part of me, and I don’t want to see them hurt.

More importantly I saw clearly the pieces of me sitting in each one. The parts of me I had drawn on to begin building them. And for the first time I saw the truth of who I see myself to be.

I’m falling asleep as I write this, but I’m so ready and yet hesitant to see what comes next.

I’m sure you’ve read statistics, the overall population of churches is falling, and of all demographics, the least represented is mine. There are countless causes for this, but there is one I was particularly aware of as I left college: most churches don’t know what to do with single, young professionals.

In short, Churches have a place for married people (couples retreats), they have places for young people (children’s and youth ministries), but what they don’t have is a place for the people in between these two places. No… “in between” is the wrong phrase. They don’t have a place for those who fall into neither camp. I don’t like the “in between” concept. It implies that I as a single college graduate am simply in an ecclesiastical holding pattern until such time as I find a wife. At that time the church will signal me to go to a particular class where other young marrieds are. The underlying assumption is of course that you are not a whole person, until you are one flesh composed of two people. If you work the math backwards it makes sense. Two married people are one flesh, therefore one unmarried person is half of one flesh, ergo not a full person. But as such an individual… that hurts.

I appreciate the struggle, after all most of the college age people who were connected to your church were in the youth group and have likely gone too far away to moved (as they were from child to youth ministry) into another stage. The population is so small it’s hard to justify paying a full time minister to exclusively focus on this group. I’ve worked with churches, and I understand the logistical complexities of the issue. After all there are only so many rooms for classes and so many volunteers to teach them, it can be difficult to sponsor a class exclusively for a group that cuts to half or less of it’s size for all of the Sundays/Wednesdays when college is in session.

Coming from a school that ranked second in the nation in the number of men who married women from the same school, and having an overwhelming number of my friends be married at roughly the same age that I am, I was well aware that there was a cultural norm that I was differentiating from when I arrived in the entry way of South Side Church of Christ in Bentonville, Arkansas.

That first Sunday, I knew two people who weren’t about to head back to college. I’d spent years as a preacher at a small mostly elderly congregation. It had been a long time since I’d been a member of a church where the people my age weren’t brought to the church along with me. I came in self-conscious, and terrified that I wouldn’t be able to find a place. Boy was I wrong.

I volunteered to help with the youth group, whose youth minister was one of those two people I mentioned that I knew. Andy welcomed me to be part of that and I was also invited (by others who helped with the youth group) to join their life group. The life group is composed of (approximately) 10 married couples… and me. I was quite fearful the first few weeks. I was waiting for the inevitable chat about it. The one where somebody starts pushing the idea that I need to get married. I kept expecting to hear something about it, but the conversation never came.

I realized last week while talking to a friend from school that while, yes, I’m surrounded by married people at church, none of them treated me like I was less. They never viewed me as if I were lacking something necessary. Never once in their company has anyone seemed to view me as less than a whole person. when that realization hit me… I truly felt so thankful. It can’t be undervalued that the men and women alike have welcomed me. They’ve treated me with dignity and respect that was in no way contingent upon my relationship status.

To those in churches around this country who struggle with where to put a person like me, I recommend the following. Don’t worry about what class I should go to, don’t worry about making sure I’ve met the other ten single people my age… worry about me. Concern yourself with who I am right now. Not the married guy I may become, not the college kid that I was. The way to interact with me… is to love me. That’s what this life group and this church have done and it has made a huge difference in my life.