Ongoing Response to COVID-19

Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-02-17

Ash Wednesday, February 17th, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
 Friends,
 
Ash Wednesday kicks off the Season of Lent. The purpose of Lent, said the early church, was to prepare us for Easter. Resurrection, not to mention the grace and horror of “Holy” Week, requires preparation. 
 
I’ve shared two poems with you to get you thinking about Lent, the Old English word for “Spring.” These poems were entries in the writing contest sponsored by Presbyterian Writer’s Guild. The theme was, simply, “ashes.” Ruth Whitney is the grand prize winner with her poem “Ash Season.” Her bio follows the poem. Louie Andrews submitted “Ash Wednesday Redux.” Louie is the son of my beloved childhood minister. There’s never a time in my life that I didn’t know Louie. There’s something comforting about our association. His mom died last year and they, like so many others, have yet to have a memorial service because of pandemic; he wrote this poem with those delayed services (and delayed grief) in mind. 
 
Lent begins with wilderness, temptation, fasting, mortality, and ashes. From the earth we have come to the earth we shall return. Ashes to ashes, we say. Dust to dust. 
 
This somber season seldom brings me down. If I feel guilt, it is often for enjoying this season so much. Spring, after all, will begin showing herself. Day light is lasting longer. Penitence marks this season for me, but so does joy. Lent reminds me I belong to God. Lent reminds me who (and whose) I am. Lent reminds me of the life after death, of the death I need not fear, which is something younger men can get away with saying since they think they’ll live forever. Lent reminds me life is hard and then we die, but life is worth living for. Life is worth dying for. Lent is an honest season. It pulls no punches. This is not fairy tale, and no one has written a Lenten lullaby.
 
Jesus didn’t preach damnation but joy. He welcomed children, and when you do that, you are one accustomed to laughter and curiosity. These are some of the stories we always revisit walking with Jesus on the way to Jerusalem.
 
Yes, Lent ends at a cross. (Easter begins at an empty tomb.) What could be more dismal and fatalistic than a journey to a place called The Skull/Golgotha? I don’t revel in the sin that gripped and still grips the world. I don’t take lightly the people who sought to trick, try, and crucify Jesus. I am ashamed they look just like me, and, perhaps, are sensible in the ways my own twisted self finds things sensible. But I am aware of the light that shatters darkness, the hope that transcends fear, the courage of the one who said, “Follow me,” and God’s grace that includes even me.
 
Some call this resurrection.
 
* * * 
 
From noon to 1:00 today, drive through the church alley for our “drive by” imposition of ashes. See below. 
 
Here are the poems.
 
* * *
 
ASH SEASON
Ruth Linnea Whitney
 
 
Everything was easy then and clear. 
The world and I were heady with our holdings. 
I sowed my future, breath to breath, cunning
as that lone cock who crowed while they led my Lord
up the stone walk and hoisted him between thieves. 
 
The season turned and ease receded, the world and I
turned gray. My father’s jaw burned to silt in an urn. 
My mother’s slender wrists cast over buffalo grass 
where she began. My friend saw her boy earn his wings, 
his plane and body splinter. Far away, a girl of six knelt 
on a land mine she took for saw grass. Hours like these, 
the ashes fell. 
 
I kneel now and listen for the fall of ashes. 
Listen for the One who knows each spark, 
sees each particle alight on earth, 
gathers each tiny grave into the enormous dark, 
where the return to life is done.  
                                                
 
Ruth Linnea Whitney lived two years in Zaire (now DRC) and has spent numerous lengthy sojourns in other countries of Africa with Health Volunteers Overseas. While husband David taught Orthopedic Surgery to local doctors, she taught ESL to AIDS orphans or distributed toys on the hospital children’s ward. These experiences inform her new novel, Mimosa Road, written mostly during The Time of Covid and forthcoming from Adelaide Books. And they inform her debut novel, Slim (Southern Methodist Univ. Press, 2003) for which she received the 2004 First Book Award (previously Angell Award) from the PCUSA Writer’s Guild. Her short stories and personal essays appear in The Threepenny Review, Kaleidoscope, Natural Bridge, Assisi, and elsewhere; poetry in Raven Chronicles and Ancient Paths; journalism in Chicago Tribune, Town & Country, and elsewhere. She serves on the Social Justice/Ecology team of 1st Presbyterian Church, Port Townsend, WA, where, with David, she makes her home. 
ruthlinnea@olympus.net
 
 
* * *
 
 
Ash Wednesday Redux
Louie V. Andrews III
 
Ash Wednesday, Ash Thursday, Ash Friday.
            Tens of hundreds of thousands of ashes,
                        Daily collected, 
Daily distributed, 
Daily placed in limbo.
Ashes in a vase, 
Ashes on a table,
            Remains waiting, and waiting, and waiting.
Ashes resurrected without celebration, 
            Ashes conveyed without consecration,
                        Hearts aching and aching and aching.
Palm Sunday the branches are burned.
            Palm Sunday the ashes are set aside.
When did Palm Sunday become 
Palm Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday,
                                    Always seeking Easter,
                                                            Always finding Friday?
We wait, 
            Yearning to assimilate ashes into the breath of God.
We ache, 
            Eager to accomplish our sacred task.
 
Ashes to Ashes,
            Dust to Dust,
But not today.
 
Ash Wednesday, Ash Thursday, Ash Friday.
            Tens of hundreds of thousands of ashes,
                                    Daily collected, 
                                                Daily distributed,
                                                            Daily placed in limbo.
                                                                        Daily exposing our grief.
 
[Written for the millions waiting to celebrate the resurrection of a loved one.]
 
 
* * * 
 
 
News
 
Please sign up for the book study. (Call the office.) 
 
BOOK STUDY!  You are invited to a congregation-wide four session book study. 
 
WHAT? Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World, 2015). A father talks to his fifteen-year-old son about the realities of inhabiting a black body.

  • WHEN?  Thursdays, February 18 and 25 and March 4 and 11 at 11:00am to 12:00 noon. 
  • HOW? Sign up by emailing or calling Patty Farthing in the church office. We will meet on-line via Zoom. 217.356.7238 /  Patty@firstpres.church . Borrow books from our public library in paper, digital or audio form. 
  • WHO? Everyone in our congregation and community is invited. Pastor Matt Matthews will facilitate. Our Compassion, Peace, and Justice Committee/ Spiritual Formation Committee will host.             
  • WHY? Jesus asks us to love each other.

 
* * *
 
Everyone is welcomed to a “drive-by” imposition of ashes from noon to 1:00 p.m. on Ash Wednesday, TODAY. Those who feel safe driving through the alley will receive ashes imposed upon their foreheads leaned through open car windows. Matt will be double-masked and will sanitize a gloved hand between congregants. While everyone is warmly invited to drive by, if you are at-risk or otherwise feel unsafe, please stay at home. Come at your own risk. We’ll be as safe as is humanly possible. Why ashes? They remind us who and whose we are. We will gather for a live Zoom service this evening at 7 p.m. led by Eric Corbin.
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.
 
* * *

In-person Worship begins on February 21st at 10:15.  After careful discussion and prayerful deliberation, the COVID-19 team and the Session have recommended that we resume limited in-person weekly worship on the First Sunday of Lent, February 21st at 10:15 a.m.  
 
For those of you who feel safe to attend, please pre-register by calling the church office at 217.356.7238. Registration will run from Monday morning to Thursday noon the week before each service. (We are preregistering not only as a means of contact-tracing, but also to keep attendance at or under fifty [50] people, including worship leaders and ushers. That is the limit prescribed by state public health guidelines.) 
 
Remember, your Session is doing everything it can to keep everyone safe during this season of pandemic. While the end may be in sight with local and statewide numbers trending downward, not everyone is vaccinated yet and Covid-19 is still deadly. Some experts guess our nationwide death toll due to Covid may total over 600,000 by later this Spring.
 
The best way to safeguard against getting Covid is to limit one’s exposure to it and to get vaccinated; while we have prepared as safe a worship environment as possible, and all participants will be required to check in, wear masks at all times, and sit at a distance of six feet from other families, we cannot guarantee that somebody won’t get sick. Those who come to worship come at their own risk.
 
These in-person services will be, essentially, services of welcome, scripture, prayer, and preaching. These brief—40-minutes, or less—services will include no spoken liturgy, no congregational singing, and no choir. The preacher will speak from behind a plexiglass barrier. There will be no indoor fellowship, and no coffee or food service before or after the service.
 
This may not sound like a very welcoming or, even, friendly invitation, does it? You know what I mean. So, make wise decisions for you and your family, stay away if you are high risk or don’t feel well, and know that I look forward to “seeing” some of you online at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday (FirstPres.Live), and others of you face to face at 10:15 a.m. 
 
God is good.
 
* * *
 
What do these folk have in common? If you guess right, I’ll buy you Jarling’s Custard Cup! So far, about a dozen saints have played the game. (All guesses get ice cream.)
 

  •       Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, 
  •       the musical genius Ludwig von Beethoven, 
  •       the football quarterback Terry Bradshaw, 
  •       Winston Churchill, 
  •       the singer Judy Collins, 
  •       Monica Seles the tennis pro who holds the longest undefeated streak—33 matches—for the Australian Open, 
  •       Abraham Lincoln. 

 
* * * 
 
Humor (Hard times really need godly laughter): 
 
Joke from long ago, about airlines that no longer exist.
Conversation between Pilot and Air Traffic Control (ATC)”
Pilot:  What time is it?
ATC: Who is asking?
Pilot: Why does it matter?
ATC:  Well, if you are Pan Am I say oh-nine hundred. If you are TWA, I say 9 am.  If you are Ozark, I say Tuesday.
 
Good Word: 
 
The 23rd Psalm
 
The Lord is my shepherd.
 
LET US PRAY

Shepherd me, O Lord.

 
I cannot make the journey alone, and I don’t like betrayal by kisses, the injustice of mob rule. I don’t like the mob in me. And the shame for only being Your Son’s fair weather friend. I’m not afraid of the journey so much as I am of myself.
 
Shepherd me, O Lord.
 
 * * *
 
Much, much love to you all.
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church

* * *

Daily Lenten Devotion from The Presbyterian Outlook

As a Lenten devotional discipline this year, you are invited to pray with
Scripture as a way of discerning what God is calling you to be and to do
during this season.
John Calvin spoke of the Bible as the “lens of faith,” likening it to a pair of eyeglasses that enables us to see the world with clearer vision as God’s creation. As theologian Serene Jones notes in “Inhabiting Scripture, Dreaming Bible” (a chapter in “Engaging Biblical Authority”), this was Calvin’s way of saying that Scripture “brings clarity and focus to all aspects of our lives” and “lets us see what we otherwise would not.” In
short, once we have these eyeglasses on, “there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that escapes their vision-framing power.”
PRACTICES:
• Scripture as prayer: One of the ways we can “put on” Scripture is by praying or meditating contemplatively on a biblical text — slowly and contemplatively reading it as a prayer to God. Indeed, this is an ancient and robust practice of prayer. When we pray with Scripture, we ponder deeply the words and images of the text. Using our imaginations, we
can even enter into the world of the text in order to discern God’s wisdom.
• Movement of God: Praying with Scripture in this way can be an aid – a focusing lens – to help us discern the movement of God in our personal lives and in the life of the world around us. Throughout the season of Lent, you will be invited to pray with one passage from Scripture each day and prompted to reflect on what it is disclosing to you about movement toward God and movement away from God in your life.
• Prayer journal: You may find it helpful to keep a journal in which you briefly note what surfaces in your prayer time, so that over the course of the Lenten journey you can track the movements of God’s Spirit in your midst. Also, consider the prayer focus of the week as you journal and pray.
• Bringing the Bible and hymns to life: Each week, a hymn will be suggested for worship and reflection. During your devotional time each day, read the words (or sing or play the hymn!) and reflect on the truths the text reveals to you. (If you don’t have a hymnal, you can Google the hymn or visit hymnary.org.) Likewise, consider the action prompt each day and note how the Spirit nudges you to fulfill it.

FEBRUARY 17, 2021 
Ash Wednesday, FEBRUARY 17, 2021

PSALM 51:1-10
The first biblical text for our Lenten journey is Psalm 51, which is traditionally read on Ash Wednesday. Psalm 51 is striking not only for its honesty about sin, but also for its confidence in God’s merciful love amid the brokenness in our lives and in the world. The psalm is a prayer – a penitential prayer – and you are invited to pray Psalm 51:1-10 in a translation of your choosing.

Practice: Read the psalm slowly two or three times and ponder deeply its images, noting which ones capture your attention. Such images can be points at which God is speaking to you and focusing your attention.
Reflect on the images for at least five minutes (longer if you desire). As you do so, sense the movements of your spirit and the emotions that they evoke — both movements toward God and away from God. Movements toward God could include, for example, a sense of hope, peace or love that surfaces. Movements away from God might include a sense of guilt or despair.

Journal: Note these movements in your journal so that you can review them during your Lenten journey.


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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-02-16

 
                                                       

 
The Heart of Mission
February 16, 2021
 
Happy Chinese New Year and Happy Valentine’s Day! I know Valentine’s Day has passed and so has the Chinese New Year (Jan.12) but I have to give a shout out to a couple of groups in our congregation who were sharing love on those days! ESL had a congregational/ESL café on Thursday Jan.11. Jeanette Pyne, our ESL Director, shared that for some of our students the Chinese New Year is a very important holiday! And, our Presbyterian Women shared a Happy Valentine’s box lunch and treats with the staff. We are so appreciative! It was such a lift in the middle of the week to have that special treat and see their smiling faces. Isn’t it fun to celebrate with people we love?
 
This Wednesday is Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. One Great Hour of Sharing is the special offering the PC(USA) collects on Easter Sunday, which ends our Lenten journey, but the whole of Lent is a time to prepare and reflect on the many ways we can help people who are hungry, help care for the earth, empower groups of people to meet a need for their community or assist people in disasters. The One Great Hour of Sharing special offering does all of that. See ALL the places in the world OGHS touches people’s lives: pcusa.org/oghsmap. The picture at the top of our newsletter today shows only a FEW of those many places.
 
In the next 6 weeks, I will give you a scripture lesson and some daily mission tasks from the One Great Hour of Sharing material to help focus you on your Lenten journey. You might want to have a small coin bank (Fish bank, First Pres bank) to collect small coins as you do these activities. If you cannot give coins, think about acts of service you can do for others.
 
Feb. 17, Ash Wednesday: Read Isaiah 58:6-8, 12. What are we asked to do? Who helps meet those same needs for you (v.12)? Say a prayer of gratitude for them. Don’t forget our Ash Wednesday zoom service. Watch the daily mailers for more information.
 
Feb. 18, Thursday: Our Gracie Fish coinboxes will hold many gifts of money this season, but what other kinds of gifts can we give? (We have handed these banks out in worship in the past. If any of you want one, I can find one for you.) What gifts can you give or share?
           
Feb. 19, Friday: Find where you live on the map and identify which OGHS site is closest to you. What problems are being solved there? See Pcusa.org/oghsmap
 
Feb. 20, Saturday: Sunday is Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA)’s Blue Shirt Sunday. What does PDA do to show God’s love? Choose something blue to wear or share with your congregation.
 
Feb. 21, Sunday: After a natural disaster or in a public health crisis, it may be hard to find places to buy basic supplies. Say a prayer of thanksgiving and a give a gift for each time you had toilet paper to use today. Read the lectionary texts: Genesis 9:8-17, Psalm 25:1-10, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Mark 1:9-15.
            Prayer for the week: God, open our eyes to your face in every person. Let us see the ways we are all connected with all of creation. May we as your Church, together, seek love, justice and peace with all. Amen.
 
Feb. 22, Monday: Over 23 million Americans live in a food desert, far from a store where they can buy fresh food. Give a gift for each grocery store nearby (and everyone you can walk to if you don’t have a car!)
 
Feb. 23, Tuesday: Electricity is usually the first utility that is lost in a storm. Give a gift for each light switch in your home. The Heart of Mission will have new activities for the next week.
 
Other mission activities you can do this week:
Make a commitment to join a small group/committee in our congregation like Environmental which met yesterday and every third Monday of the month or World Mission which meets every third Tuesday at 4:30 via zoom. (Be patient just a little longer for in person meetings!)
 
Join Frontera de Cristo on their Coffee, Conversation and Compassion zoom Thursdays.
 

 
Join Farsijanna Adeney-Risakotta (Indonesia) and the World Mission Committee on an evaluation of fair trade products in Indonesia with the microfinancing organization she helps teach and coach. Several of us tested the products for them and our congregation gave them a microfinance grant that is still going. (Yes, you see my smiling face in one of those pictures.)
 

 
Pray with CU at Home and other local mission agencies:
 

  • Would you join us in prayer for the leaders and members of our community that we would all remain diligent and strong as we continue to battle COVID-19?
  • Please pray for all those who participated in One Winter Night 2021 that they would received a blessing from their commitment and faithfulness but that they would also remain healthy and enter 2021 with a new perspective of just how blessed they are.
  • Would you also pray for the grandson of one of our close friends who is suffering with some continued medical issues? We pray for healing and strength for this little guy and his family.
  • Praise the Lord for the ability to remain open during these extremely cold temperatures! Because of amazing community support we have been open 24 hours a day since the morning after One Winter Night at the Phoenix and the shelters providing a warm and safe place for our friends! We will continue this service at least for the next several days. 
  • Thank you God for bringing SO many different sectors of society together to produce the most successful One Winter Night event we have ever had! When we all come together for one common goal, amazing impact can happen!
  • Praise to Jesus for helping us reach our One Winter Night fundraising goal at 8:21pm on the night of the event! To God be the glory!!!
 
Pray with Presbyterian Education Board (PEB) in Pakistan and/or join the Pakistan study group which meets every Wednesday afternoon from 1:30-3:00:
 

National and International Concerns
Continuing struggle against COVID -19 virus
Renewed strength to live responsibly and healthy for the welfare of all
For wise and compassionate leadership
For children at our border separated from their parents to be reunited as soon as possible
Protection from COVID-19

FOPEB and PEB Concerns
Our new Executive Director, Laurie, as she settles in and guides us in our ministry.
The teachers, staff, students and households of PEB
For the Boards, staff, and households of FOPEB and PEB
The generous supporters of FOPEB
FOPEB staff as we continue to about each other and working together
The academics in PEB schools will go well
For financial growth for PEB schools
Pray for PEB property issue and the return of the last three schools
Pray for the new HR department at PEB
Miss Seemab asks for more admissions at Gill-Nicholson’s Boy’s High School
Miss Seemab asks for a successful academic year
Miss Saba asks for increased enrollment at Solomon Standard School
New partners for the SHE project.
God’s ideas for fundraising for PEB as visits still are limited

Personal Concerns
Veda as she travels back to Pakistan for a fruitful time
Tina to have wisdom helping care for her mother
Laurie’s daughter Audrey who has entered bootcamp in the Air Force 
Pam’s daughter Samantha to have a healthy baby due February 18th

Healing
Miss Kashif asks for prayer for her families spiritual growth
Pray for healing for Miss Reeba’s mother who has been unwell
Pray for Mr. Suleman’s trigeminal pain for healing
Pray for Mr. Akhtar’s daughter who has been unwell for a number of years
Pray for Mr. Khurram’s son has been unwell
Lynn to have a speedy recovery from surgery February 15th.
Shelley’s friend Sharon for healing from cancer
Carol, an elderly relative of Pam is in ICU with blood clots in her lungs

Praise and Thanks
We give thanks that the schools are reopened
Give thanks that the Pasrur legal case has been resolved in PEB’s favor
Give thanks that Veda had a good stay in the United States
Give thanks for the recovery of Mr. Khalid’s daughter
 
And, finally, pray for our sister congregation in Cuba. Our Cuba partners would like us to consider reaching out to our elected representatives to share our experiences in Cuba and speak out for ourselves and our Cuba partners like our sister congregation in Luyano, Havana. If you need a sample letter to help you ask them to support improved US-Cuba relations, let me know and I can point you in a helpful direction.
 
Peace,
 
Rev. Dr. Rachel Matthews, Mission Coordinator
 
 
Let us keep all our mission partners in our prayers, those who are waiting to go back to their place of ministry and those who are able to work where they are. Listen for God’s call to you in their ministry.
 
Our PC(USA) Mission CoWorkers:
 
Mark Adams and Miriam Maidonado Escobar (Mexico)
Farsijanna Adeney-Risakotta (Indonesia)
Jeff and Christi Boyd (Central Africa)
Bob and Kristi Rice (South Sudan)
 
Our regional and global mission partners:
 
Kemmerer Village (and Camp Carew)
Lifeline Pilots
Marion Medical Mission
Mission Aviation Fellowship
Opportunity International
Friends of Presbyterian Education Board in Pakistan Presbyterian Cuba Partnership
Special Offerings of the PC(USA)
Theological Education Fund
Young Adult Volunteers
 
Here in Champaign – Urbana:
 
CU at Home
CANAAN S.A.F.E. HOUSE
CANTEEN RUN
COURAGE CONNECTION
DREAAM
eMPTY TOMB, INC
FAITH IN ACTION
JESUS IS THE WAY PRISON MINISTRY
THE REFUGEE CENTER
RESTORATION URBAN MINISTRY
SALT & LIGHT
 
Here at First Presbyterian Church
 
FPCC Amateur Preachers
FPCC Environmental Committee working with Faith in Place
FPCC Presbyterian Women
FPCC ESL
FPCC Children, Youth and Families
FPCC Mission Possible/Go and Serve
FPCC Mission Team, World Mission and Community Mission Deacons

 
 
A picture containing drawing Description automatically generated
 

  302 W. Church Street
  Champaign, IL 61820
  217-356-7238
  info@firstpres.church

 

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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-02-15

Monday, February 15th, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Friends,
 
I begin today with fiction. News follows. Shrove Tuesday, as you know, is the feasting/party day before the weighty truth of Ash Wednesday.
 
Everyone is welcomed to a “drive-by” imposition of ashes from noon to 1:00 p.m. on Ash Wednesday, February 17th. Those who feel safe driving through the alley will, leaning through open car windows, receive ashes imposed upon their foreheads. Matt will be double-masked and will sanitize a gloved hand between congregants. While everyone is warmly invited to drive by, if you are at-risk or otherwise feel unsafe, please stay at home. Come at your own risk. We’ll be as safe as is humanly possible. Why ashes? They remind us who and whose we are. We will gather for a live Zoom service that evening at 7 p.m. led by Eric Corbin.
 
* * *
 
Mostly True Account of 
A Family Trip to Texas
 
A short story of fiction for the Eve of Shrove Tuesday
by Matt Matthews
 
               John Mark, our youngest kid, is used to hand-me-downs and has always had to claw for the spot light. I’ve admired how he’s grabbed it, mainly by way of his winsome smile, which he uses like a chainsaw, and his humor. Often his two older brothers get the attention. Joseph is in college and Benjamin is in tenth grade. John Mark, almost fourteen, is in eighth. He’s outgrown melting down into tears when he doesn’t get what he wants, and he’s too smart to pick fights with his much larger and sometime humorless sibs because they can beat the pudding out of him and often do. His mom and I operate more and more on parental autopilot these days. We let our three sons work it out for themselves, which is a more politically correct way of saying, “May the best son win.” John Mark ends up on top about a third of the time, so there’s no need for me to worry, but sometimes I do. 
            Because I’m a father and he’s the youngest, I do worry. I was particularly mindful of John Mark feeling left out on our trip to the Texas in-laws. Joseph remained at college, but the younger two and my wife and I pasted on smiles for the thousand mile drive this spring break. I wanted to do my part in letting John Mark shine. Some fathers make such calculations. I’m sure the saying that “I love my kids uniquely not equally” is nonsensical to the kid holding the short end of the stick. Some fathers ponder such disparity. Others keep up with basketball scores. 
            On the arduous trek across mile after mile of interstate blandness, I feared Ben would hog the spot light and John Mark would have no choice—again—but to hug the shadows. Benjamin, at sixteen and in the final stages of his driving instruction, would be behind the wheel a significant portion of our 34-hour round-trip passage from South Carolina. John Mark would be off my radar during much of this marathon. While Ben managed driving duties, I’d be sitting shotgun making Zen-like observations about spent tread in the roadway and various other hazards posed by dozing truckers, the legally blind, and other vehicular maniacs. Calmly, I’d be offering gentle encouragement for my son to stay between the lines despite video-gamesque obstacles while maintaining interstate speeds approaching mach one.
            The second reason I thought John Mark might be shoved to the side was that Ben brought guitars and his mandolin and practically vibrated with eagerness to jam with Uncle Alan, show off his developing skills, and learn a few new licks. John Mark is musical but is not the musical fanatic Ben is blossoming into. I imagined JM might find himself on the outside of that circle.
            We got to Texas in one piece physically at four o’clock on Monday afternoon, an hour early. Benjamin and I had white line fever. I fell into the hammock on the porch outside and skidded hard into a nap. I awoke to brother-in-law Alan standing above me with his son Jake in his arms. “There’s your Uncle Matt,” Alan said gently. 
            “Your favorite uncle,” I chimed in sleepily. 
            Jake smiled then squirmed to go back inside. My glasses had fallen off, so color and light were muted, and everything blurred at the edges. I was left alone with the purpling twilight sky. Before I struggled for the hammock’s release, I contented myself with the chirping of what I reckoned to be warblers or titmice, yellows and grays flaring in and out of the birdfeeder.
            I should have taken this serene moment as invitation to relax my hyped, fatherly protection. It wasn’t my job to make everyone enjoy this trip. But the lines often blur between what I do and do not have control over, and worry is a form of power that I often abuse. I should have known that John Mark didn’t need me, at least not for that. John Mark would fend for himself winningly, which, of course, he did.      
            He proved that in a big way on our trip home. 
            Since it was only one hour out of the way, we stopped in New Orleans. I wanted my boys to be exposed to live Dixie Land music. I say exposed because I didn’t want them just to hear it or see it. A DVD at home would suffice if that were the case. I wanted them to be there. I wanted them to soak it in. Ben is in the high school jazz band, and when he’s not playing guitar, he’s in the alto sax line. John Mark, much less interested in his middle school band, plays clarinet; at home he plays around on the piano. I wanted these guys to see jazz up close. Preservation Hall would be the perfect place.
            Leroy Jones, the night’s band leader, sang and beamed an infectious smile when he wasn’t blowing his dulled, bronze-colored trumpet. He sang without a mic. An ancient man on tenor sax played buttery smooth riffs and smiled like a kid as the crowd clapped and hooted after each solo. A young white woman played piano and held her own during her adequate solos. When the smiling Jones lifted his trumpet, he let us have it like machine gun fire and the mournful trombone followed with a kind of healing that made us beam and sway.
            Most of us could see the front door that entered into the hallway stage right. Most of us, then, could also see the young cop when he entered. He chatted amiably with the staff who waited the door. At first, I thought it was just a drop-in visit on a beat that needed a dose of good music. If I were a cop I’d stop here as often as I could. But the mellow hippies at the door were getting antsy. And the way he spun his silver handcuffs around his finger made me wonder if something was going down. 
            As the band soaked up the applause for Whenever You’re Lonesome, the lady at the door crept into the spot light and whispered to the drummer. He raised his eyebrows, leaned forward and whispered a few words to the bandleader, then got up and left for the hall. He stood mainly out of sight while I watched the cop apologetically put the cuffs on and lead his bowed shadow out. Meanwhile the lady on trombone spoke quietly with the hippies at the door as if to say, Really? A note was passed to Leroy Jones. He read it twice, like a man who needed glasses, handed it back, then smiled to the audience. 
            “It seems we have lost our drummer,” he said. 
            Everybody broke up. 
            “Thanks to Facebook, the police always know where we are. And it’s difficult to hide when you’re playing a gig at Preservation Hall.”
            They finished with two more songs, and while the drummer was good and was missed, there was nothing incomplete about this deeply heartfelt music.
 
            We lingered without speaking in the few shops still open near the Cathedral. On Decatur, I bought a dozen beads and a box of Café Du Monde beignet mix. John Mark took the black plastic bag and twirled it clockwise and counter-clockwise around his hand like the cop did with his silver cuffs. Busloads of drunken young adults stumbled towards Bourbon Street. We stood back and watched. 
            On the mile-long walk from the French Quarter to our hotel in the Warehouse District, Rachel who is not directionally brave, pointed down a dark side street. It’ll be quicker if we go this way, she said. Besides, who wanted to go back the way we came? We’d see new things by going home another way. This logic made sense, but the narrow road opened like a hole in the sagging building facades around it. The wise men came to mind. They went home another way after their visit to the manger. But their detour was designed to take them out of harm’s way, not into it. This dark street looked like a get-into-trouble-free card. Perhaps we should have known better. Heads still nodding with music, we obediently followed my wife. It was just chilly enough that we had to walk briskly to stay warm. We launched off the curb and followed Rachel like lemmings across Canal into the yawning shadow of this nondescript side street. The dark windows may have concealed eyes.
            I took up the rear mainly because to walk faster would have required speeding up the sound track still playing in my head. At midblock a thin man charged from a doorway. He screeched at us, his eyes riveted on Rachel. He shoved her backwards into Ben. Like a linebacker, Ben caught her in his arms and steadied her back onto her feet. I guessed that part of him was the man who wanted to step between her and the yelling skinny man; another part of Ben just stood there wanting his mother—the adult, after all—to defend him. Despite his sized twelve shoes, he was still a child. 
            I stood frozen ten paces behind them, frozen and watching. I couldn’t believe what was happening. This was a dark night and a darker street. I should have known better. We stood in a ragged line. Rachel up front, Ben close behind, then John Mark, then me rooted into the sidewalk farthest from the action. The skinny man may have been on drugs or scared or both. He wasn’t a professional or he would have done his damage, taken what he wanted, and been halfway gone by now. He was wiry-thin, possibly strong, and raving, spittle arching from behind yellowed teeth. He could have been sixteen or sixty. Adrenaline and violence obscure time, age, perspective. “Hey, hey, hey” he shouted to Rachel. “Give me your purse.”
            My brain lurched into gear even though my body remained frozen. I wanted to point out that my wife wasn’t even carrying a purse. Oddly, a primordial part of my brain counseled to keep quiet lest his vehemence shift from her to me. 
            “Give it to me laaa-dy.”
            The force of his words punched Rachel backwards. Each word was an inch.
            “Hey!” somebody growled. 
            I looked around expecting to see a circle of them emerging from the walls to finish the job the skinny man had started. That it was John Mark’s voice upped the alarms going off in my body. John Mark’s voice? John Mark? Nothing was computing.
            The skinny man whirled from Rachel to our fragile, youngest child.
            “Yeah you,” John Mark shouted. He jabbed the air with the forefinger of his left hand. “I’m talking to you.” He twirled his plastic bag around his right fist. 
            The skinny man took a stagger-step to John Mark, but John Marked closed the distance with two quicker, smaller steps. He raised the bag over his head like a sling and swung it towards the man’s angry face. The bag and possibly the corner of the 28-ounce box of beignet mix glanced off the man’s upper cheek into his right eye socket. He winced. I winced. Unblinking, John Mark swung again as the man stumbled sideways off the stone curb. John Mark stepped down and spun the bag above his head for a third strike. 
            The box of beignet mix had broken open. Wheat and barley flour plumed in the air like a dirty bomb. The now-astonished man hit the damp pavement and scrabbled on his injured side as John Mark leaned forward for a fourth, forceful blow. Again, he found his mark. Clots of flour spurted out, blinding the man, choking him. Flour, buttermilk, salt, sugar, baking soda, and artificial flavoring bloomed upwards. The night air suddenly smelled like Shrove Tuesday. The man choked and whimpered. Pallid, wretched, ill, he crossed his raised arms for protection. Like a wounded white leopard, he could still pounce. What was I waiting for? Why was I still frozen? He could still hurt us, or worse.
            By now something exploded from my chest and I could finally move. I grabbed John Mark, who had hit the man two more times, and screamed to the others, “Run!”
            I pulled John Mark away, but he struggled against me, like he didn’t want to go, like he had started a job that he wanted to finish. I pulled harder. He dropped the bag and we sprinted to catch up with the others. 
            In another world around the nearest corner, an upscale boutique hotel opened into a crowded patio restaurant. Gas lamps lit the wrought iron, the patterned brick sidewalks, and the colorful first floor flowerboxes. Potted palms guarded the arched doorway. Tuxedoed doormen and patrons looked our way.
            “We’ve been robbed,” Rachel blubbered, though that wasn’t true at all. We had been attacked but nothing had been taken except a box of beignets and a wad of one-dozen colored, plastic beads. And they weren’t exactly taken, so much as used in our defense. They were the detritus of battle, not the booty of a successful robbery.
            “Where’s John Mark?” Rachel choked, hoarsely, looking wide-eyed over my shoulder. It seemed impossible, but her face blanched an even whiter shade of pale.
            I had released my grip on his shirt. I turned and he wasn’t behind me. Ben and I bolted instinctively for the corner. When we rounded a dead light pole into the ominous dark, we stopped. John Mark was walking towards us—sauntering, really—down the center of the street. He was wearing that smile of his, the smile that I’ll never underestimate again. Wadded in his right hand he held that black, plastic bag. As he stepped into the light, and the burly doormen bumped to a stop behind us, he lifted the bag like Excalibur. The last of the beignet mix filtered like Louisiana voodoo powder to the street.
            “Can you believe it?” John Mark said. “That guy almost got away with our beads.”
 
# # #
 
 
NEWS, et cetera . . .
 
Please sign up for the book study. (Call the office.) It’s a serious topic, but I hope we’re going to have fun. Is that all right? To have fun talking about serious stuff? I hope so. There’s nothing wrong about holy laughter. See you at the book study.
 
BOOK STUDY!  You are invited to a congregation-wide four session book study on race.

  • WHAT? Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World, 2015). A father talks to his fifteen-year-old son about the realities of inhabiting a black body.
  • WHEN?  Thursdays, February 18 and 25 and March 4 and 11 at 11:00am to 12:00 noon. 
  • HOW? Sign up by emailing or calling Patty Farthing in the church office. We will meet on-line via Zoom. 217.356.7238 /  Patty@firstpres.church . Borrow books from our public library in paper, digital or audio form. 
  • WHO? Everyone in our congregation and community is invited. Pastor Matt Matthews will facilitate. Our Compassion, Peace, and Justice Committee/ Spiritual Formation Committee will host.             
  • WHY? Jesus asks us to love “the other. A first step is listening to understand “the other”.

 
* * *

In-person Worship begins on February 21st at 10:15.  After careful discussion and prayerful deliberation, the COVID-19 team and the Session have recommended that we resume limited in-person weekly worship on the First Sunday of Lent, February 21st at 10:15 a.m.  
 
For those of you who feel safe to attend, please pre-register by calling the church office at 217.356.7238. Registration will run from Monday morning to Thursday noon the week before each service. (We are preregistering not only as a means of contact-tracing, but also to keep attendance at or under fifty [50] people, including worship leaders and ushers. That is the limit prescribed by state public health guidelines.) 
 
Remember, your Session is doing everything it can to keep everyone safe during this season of pandemic. While the end may be in sight with local and statewide numbers trending downward, not everyone is vaccinated yet and Covid-19 is still deadly. Some experts guess our nationwide death toll due to Covid may total over 600,000 by later this Spring.
 
The best way to safeguard against getting Covid is to limit one’s exposure to it and to get vaccinated; while we have prepared as safe a worship environment as possible, and all participants will be required to check in, wear masks at all times, and sit at a distance of six feet from other families, we cannot guarantee that somebody won’t get sick. Those who come to worship come at their own risk.
 
These in-person services will be, essentially, services of welcome, scripture, prayer, and preaching. These brief—40-minutes, or less—services will include no spoken liturgy, no congregational singing, and no choir. The preacher will speak from behind a plexiglass barrier. There will be no indoor fellowship, and no coffee or food service before or after the service.
 
This may not sound like a very welcoming or, even, friendly invitation, does it? You know what I mean. So, make wise decisions for you and your family, stay away if you are high risk or don’t feel well, and know that I look forward to “seeing” some of you online at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday (FirstPres.Live), and others of you face to face at 10:15 a.m. 
 
God is good.
  
* * *
 
Holy God, walk with us through these cold, dark days, 
even as we dream of the greening of our parks,
the thawing of our clenched lives,
into the springtime of your love.
 
From ashes to empty tombs,
guide our every step, faltering, 
save for your
redeeming
grace.
 
A
M
E
N
 
.
.
.
 
 
Much, much love to you all.
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church


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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-02-12

Friday, February 12th, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
Dear Friends, 
 
Yesterday standing at my front door in pajamas I asked Rachel to come and identify the animal tracks that loped across our walkway, up the steps to our front door, then back out over the side yard. “It’s a cat,” she said. Upon closer inspection she said, “No, it’s a dog. See the claws?” 
 
I couldn’t tell, which is why I asked. 
 
I said, “Let’s put out a bowl of milk for tomorrow and see what we get.”
 
“No,” she said. (Though she did this once, which is how we got our last cat, Miss Kitty who we had for most of the growing up years of our boys.) “What if it’s a fox?”
 
Foxes like milk, I thought. And if it were a wild animal, we had stolen its habitat with salted roads, fertilized lawns, and Cape Cods like ours. Milk is a sorry consolation.
 
When neighborhood kids traipse up our door step selling Girl Scout cookies or popcorn or giftwrap, they always make a sale. Those kids probably put some mark on our mailbox letting other kids know we’re easy targets. 
 
I hate to see a fox leave empty handed. I pour some milk in a bowl before I go to bed.
 
But that’s not the point of this impromptu story. Standing at the door, wondering about the snowy footprints, we noticed a squirrel wriggling on its back in the snow. It was injured. No prints led to the spot upon which it writhed. It had fallen from a low branch, from the tree with a rot-hole in it where a family of squirrels live. We watch them from our front room.
 
It wasn’t bloodied. It hadn’t been in a fight, at least not on the ground. The snow surrounding it was untouched all around that wounded beast.
 
I pulled on clothes over my pajamas. I am not a morning person. I stabbed my bare feet into Ben’s old work boots, a size too big. My favorites. 
 
“Don’t pick it up without gloves,” Rachel cautioned. 
 
I imagined it wringing back to life and attacking my juggler. 

“I’ll get a shovel.”
 
I went out with a cardboard box padded with newspapers. I carefully shoveled the animal into the box. “Shall I bring it in?” 
 
Rachel looked at me like I was insane.
 
The garage was as cold as it was outside, without a sun.
 
“Put it here,” she pointed, and I set it in a patch of sun at a recessed corner of our yellow house, out of the wind. Rachel gave me a towel which I folded onto the squirrel. 
 
By now he was moving less, and I didn’t know if it was because he was scared to death of me or if he was actually dying. It was quiet. He was a young squirrel, not fully grown, but big enough to dart around the branches of our front yard tree. He was very still. His wide eyes, so brown, so brown, were breaking my heart. I’m no Dr. Doolittle. And I was not prepared for further intervention. Don’t we all deserve to be held when we die? My instinct, of course, was to cradle him to my chest and sing. I didn’t want him to die. I wanted him to thank me this spring, chat me up from that hole in the tree. We all want to be somebody’s hero.
 
I trudged down to the warm basement to see if we still had Miss Kitty’s plastic cage. I could put the squirrel there and put him in the basement. Rachel was on some Zoom call with Church Ladies; she didn’t have to know. But we gave that cat carrier away before we moved. The dog’s wire cage couldn’t hold such a narrow animal.
 
When I came back outside, the tip of squirrel’s tail poking out from under the towel was moving ever so slightly, but I think it was the breeze. My fallen friend was in shock, in sleep, freezing.
 
When I came out after my hot shower, I removed the towel and that young squirrel’s body was stiff and his eye was covering over with a cloudy cataract as perfect as a snowflake.
 
And, now near midnight, listening to Rutter as you will have the opportunity to do on Friday morning, heading soon for that bowl of milk for the visiting fox, I realize I’ve been so sad all day long for the squirrel I could only love but could not save.
 
* * *
 
Life is worship.
 
* * *
 
See you Sunday. (And don’t forget the congregational meeting at 10 a.m.)
 
PEACE and much love,
 
Matt Matthews
864.386.9138
 
* * *
  
Our Annual Meeting is THIS Sunday February 14th at 10 Sunday morning. Join us for a quick report. We’ll also vote on the pastors’ terms of call. Thanks for joining us. Here’s the link. https://firstpres.church/meeting
 
* * *
 
Hard copies of the Annual Report will be available in the plastic holders on the wall outside the alley entry of the Education Building on Friday. If you want a hard copy, you may drive by the alley, and find hard copies there. Also, PDF copies will be available on our website at this link:  
https://firstpres.church/hp_wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020-Annual-Report-4.pdf
 
* * *

From your Nurture Team — Last week’s photo challenge received many correct guesses, starting with Nancy Brombaugh and Amy Born, who identified Joyce Wittler

   

Here’s this week’s photo. 

Visit http://fb.com/groups/firstpreschampaign to make your guesses, or email them to photos@firstpres.church.  
 
Please join in the fun!  We are running low on photos, so we would like you to select a photo from your younger years (grade school, high school or early adulthood). Photos need not be professional. Candid shots are welcome. Please send your photos to photos@firstpres.church.

* * *
 
LOSSES
by Carl Sandburg
 
I HAVE love
And a child,
A banjo
And shadows.
(Losses of God,
All will go
And one day
We will hold
Only the shadows.)
 
* * *
 
Rutter’s Requiem, offered for the Charleston Nine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bz39xh5Boc
 


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Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-02-11

Thursday, February 11th, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Friends,
 
ESL “Café” is TODAY. This Zoom gathering enabled our immigrants to have conversation partners. When you want to speak a new language, you should practice, right? So please don’t underestimate you ability to help brothers and sisters better learn and speak English. Join us for a conversation. Our fantastic ESL director, Jeanette Pyne, will lead us; last time, she had a funny game we played. Let’s BE the church together. 

If you have any questions, please email the ESL Director, Jeanette Pyne, at jeanette@firstpres.church.

 
 * * *
 
Please sign up for the book study. (Call the office.) It’s a serious topic, but I hope we’re going to have fun. Is that all right? To have fun talking about serious stuff? I hope so. There’s nothing wrong about holy laughter. See you at the book study.
 
BOOK STUDY!  You are invited to a congregation-wide four session book study on race.

  • WHAT? Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World, 2015). A father talks to his fifteen-year-old son about the realities of inhabiting a black body.
  • WHEN?  Thursdays, February 18 and 25 and March 4 and 11 at 11:00am to 12:00 noon. 
  • HOW? Sign up by emailing or calling Patty Farthing in the church office. We will meet on-line via Zoom. 217.356.7238 /  Patty@firstpres.church . Borrow books from our public library in paper, digital or audio form. 
  • WHO? Everyone in our congregation and community is invited. Pastor Matt Matthews will facilitate. Our Compassion, Peace, and Justice Committee/ Spiritual Formation Committee will host.             
  • WHY? Jesus asks us to love “the other. A first step is listening to understand “the other”.

 * * *
 
News
 
Our Annual Meeting is THIS Sunday February 14th at 10 o’clock. Join us for a quick report. We’ll also vote on the pastors’ terms of call. Thanks for joining us. Here’s the link… 
https://firstpres.church/meeting
 
* * *
 
Hard copies of the Annual Report will be available in the plastic holders  outside the door at the alley entry of the Education Building on Friday. If you want a hard copy, you may drive by the alley, and find hard copies there. Also, PDF copies are available on our website at this link: https://firstpres.church/hp_wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020-Annual-Report-3.pdf
 
* * *
 
Everyone is welcomed to a “drive-by” imposition of ashes from noon to 1 p.m. on Ash Wednesday, February 17th. Those who feel safe driving through the alley will receive ashes imposed upon their foreheads leaned through open car windows. Matt will be double-masked and will sanitize a gloved hand between congregants. While everyone is warmly invited to drive by, if you are at-risk or otherwise feel unsafe, please stay at home. Come at your own risk. We’ll be as safe as is humanly possible. Why ashes? They remind us who and whose we are. We will gather for a live Zoom service that evening at 7 p.m. led by Eric Corbin.
 
* * *

In-person Worship begins on February 21st at 10:15.  After careful discussion and prayerful deliberation, the COVID-19 team and the Session have recommended that we resume limited in-person weekly worship on the First Sunday of Lent, February 21st at 10:15 a.m.  
 
For those of you who feel safe to attend, please pre-register by calling the church office at 217.356.7238. Registration will run from Monday morning to Thursday noon the week before each service. (We are preregistering not only as a means of contact-tracing, but also to keep attendance at or under fifty [50] people, including worship leaders and ushers. That is the limit prescribed by state public health guidelines.) 
 
Remember, your Session is doing everything it can to keep everyone safe during this season of pandemic. While the end may be in sight with local and statewide numbers trending downward, not everyone is vaccinated yet and Covid-19 is still deadly. Some experts guess our nationwide death toll due to Covid may total over 600,000 by later this Spring.
 
The best way to safeguard against getting Covid is to limit one’s exposure to it and to get vaccinated; while we have prepared as safe a worship environment as possible, and all participants will be required to check in, wear masks at all times, and sit at a distance of six feet from other families, we cannot guarantee that somebody won’t get sick. Those who come to worship come at their own risk.
 
These in-person services will be, essentially, services of welcome, scripture, prayer, and preaching. These brief—40-minutes, or less—services will include no spoken liturgy, no congregational singing, and no choir. The preacher will speak from behind a plexiglass barrier. There will be no indoor fellowship, and no coffee or food service before or after the service.
 
This may not sound like a very welcoming or, even, friendly invitation, does it? You know what I mean. So, make wise decisions for you and your family, stay away if you are high risk or don’t feel well, and know that I look forward to “seeing” some of you online at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday (FirstPres.Live), and others of you face to face at 10:15 a.m. 
 
God is good.
 
* * *
 
What do these folk have in common? If you guess right, I’ll buy you Jarling’s Custard Cup! 
 

  •       Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, 
  •       the musical genius Ludwig von Beethoven, 
  •       the football quarterback Terry Bradshaw, 
  •       Winston Churchill, 
  •       the singer Judy Collins, 
  •       Monica Seles the tennis pro who holds the longest undefeated streak—33 matches—for the Austrailian Open, 
  •       Abraham Lincoln. 

* * * 
 
Humor (Hard times really need godly laughter): 
 
What did the beach say as the tide came in?
Long time, no sea.
 
(I need jokes!!)
 
* * * 
 
Good Word: 
 
The 23rd Psalm                      
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Let us pray

Holy God

In 
your 
wide mercy
 
f
o
r
g
i
v

 
and redeem what I have been, 
 
help
me
amend 
            what I am, 
 
and 
direct
            what I shall be, 
 
so that I may 
            delight in your will, 
            and walk in your ways, 
to the glory of 
your 
holy 
name.
 
* * *
 
Much, much love to you all.

Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church


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