Matt was an old friend of ours and he was killed last week along with his friend Stephen Swan, by two 19 year old young men outside his recording studio in Downtown Garland. He started Zion Gate Recording Studio just a few years after his first recording session with me in my apartment in 2000. His passion for music, musicians and the Kingdom of God will be missed.

I talked with his mom after the funeral and she mentioned a project to help pay off the studio as well as support victims of violent crime. I hope that we can help with it.

The night of the murder, he and Stephen had finished recording a song at the studio that kept them there late. The name of the song: We All Die Before Our Time. They played the song today at the funeral and it was amazing. I am going to try and get a copy to share with everyone that I can.

Along with the grief of losing Matt, I'll admit to being not a little pissed off that the pastor who led the memorial never once mentioned the senselessness of it all. He failed to talk about the Enemy and the destruction of life. He failed to say that this whole thing was NOT good. He tried to talk about God's sovereignty and how God was not "surprised" by all of this, but never once acknowledged that this whole thing is not right. 28 year-old young men with a wife, 2 kids and an incredible passion and dream are not supposed to be killed for a car. Especially when gas is $4 a gallon. That's just fucked up.

I hope in the end that some sort of good can come out of it all. Right now, it just sucks. I hope I can learn to forgive the killers and learn to pray for them. But right now, it is just difficult.

If I die "before my time", let my funeral be incredible. Do not disrespect my wife's grief by trying to play happy songs just because they are on the program. If it does not feel right, don't do it. Let Dave, Mike and anyone else who wants to, paint live a piece that will somehow tell my story. Let Will do what only Will can on the mic. Tell people that I loved God. Or, at least, that I tried to and that Thomas Merton taught me that I'm not sure if I can even do that, but that hopefully the desire to do so was pleasing enough.

Tell people that I loved my wife, deeply, but never deep enough, and that my son and my daughter were, after Jesus and Kelly, the best things that ever happened to me. Tell them that my greatest fear was failing as a father and that hopefully, if God had any compassion on me, my family turns out to be one that lives God's dreams and risks everything to see God's heart revealed in this world.

Tell them that somehow, I knew art could change the world. Somehow, artists hold special keys to unlock things that people know and feel but cannot express. Tell them that every show I did made me tired, but fueled my passion to see a more beautiful world before I left it, because our mom's always taught us to leave things in better shape than you found them in.

Tel them that I'm sorry that I was not more compassionate and that I couldn't feed all the poor. I'm sorry that I didn't recycle more. I'm sorry that I didn't find the cure for AIDS.

Tell them that I discovered that the sage was right when he said it is better to visit the house of mourning than the house of celebration. Tell them to party, to laugh and to love well, but that ultimately, one day, the end comes for all of us. Until that day, find the dream, embrace the curse and the struggle of it all, and run. Run with everything you have until you can't run anymore and while you run... LOVE.

Love God and love your neighbor the same way you want to be loved...unconditionally.