On the Creators: Matthew

I want to tell you a little bit about the people in my life….

MATTHEW SCHULER, brother.
I once told him that I quote him more than any other individual. This has remained true. I’m not sure if it’s just the shared, brother-to-brother wiring, but it seems that my brother is one of the most brilliant people I know. I am constantly astounded and then surprised that I’m astounded, then astounded that I’m surprised. This is my basic reaction to his many endeavors which have included photography, creative writing, spiritual teaching, web design, videography, gardening, theater, and apparently (though I wasn’t around for it) creating fireballs out of chimichangas.

His mind moves a mile a minute and yet he has retained a passionate resistance to the lie of over-achievement and “ambition.” While still an unapologetic perfectionist, Matthew is, and has always been, a trusted friend, brother and mentor. Despite his ambivalence toward most plans, he does have one idea at the moment: grad school in L.A., Fuller Theological Seminary. I don’t know how he will like Los Angeles or how Los Angeles will like him, but I can guarantee he will come out of the city a powerful man, not in the traditional, worldly sense – but in an awe-inspiring, world-changing sense; powerful in his love’s vastness, his mind’s unstoppable belief in the good, his being’s perpetual faith.

We’ve shared everything in the past, from childhood movies to made-up road-trip games to original music (that stuff rocked, there’s no way around it) to unhealthy TV-on-DVD obsessions to unhealthier Papa John’s addictions (usually paired with the television) to gentle treks on the Konza Prairie to wild, absolutely freezing and unlucky road trips to Chicago to the lead parts in plays to late-night video editing (o, the agony).

But this isn’t a place for reminiscing (though I wish you all could’ve seen him run straight into a barn with his face). Matthew is genuinely insane and insanely genuine. Previously known for a tendency toward shock humor, he still enjoys bluntness for bluntness’ sake. This makes him both absolutely thought-provoking in conversation and in his teachings, but puts him at odds with our somewhat overly sensitive mother at times. Always a leader and yet hesitant to accept a large amount of responsibility (not out of fear, but humility… and maybe a little fear), he has taught me how to love others and myself – with grace and contentment and without social and spiritual burdens.

His answers are succinct. His mind is not hindered in ways many of ours are. He loves without thinking, as we all should. He boasts of others. He pours out his life for others. Occasionally, he finds himself scrambling to scoop up the Matthew spilling down into the street’s gutters, realizing he’d given too much of himself away.

I have sometimes wondered about his path, winding as it’s been thus far (college, business, college, repeat), and cannot help wonder where he would be if he had not chosen to come back to Manhattan, KS to finish school. I imagine him across the world, doing what needs done where he finds himself. Occasionally, I think he’d be there already had his brother not been around, not been a factor. Sometimes I even go so far as to ask, how has him staying here for me benefited him at all? Because it has been amazing for me, to have a brother so close, with which to create memories all the way to 22 (who gets that privilege?), but he has questioned his choice to go to Kansas State, has questioned the decisions he made up till now. And so do I. But I have faith he was here for a reason, that all the people he’s touched would’ve been a bit more in the dark without his apt talent at shedding light. I have faith his life here was of great importance.

But now that time is over for us, together. I’ll be moving to Chicago in September. I will miss him and his brilliance, his love, his encouragement. He’ll continue to astound me, thanks to blogs and podcasts and telephones. But it won’t be the same, not this fall or the next or ever. So it’s a good thing that we got the extra time we did, and that we don’t plan on being too far apart later. And if we are, neither of us are into plan-making, so perhaps I’ll just pack up and head to where he is. Regardless, his importance in my life, the example he is and the energy he exudes, will never be taken for granted.