Monday November 16^th, 2020
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
Deep Thoughts/Words from our Confessions:
 
            The Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of people long silences, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace. In gratitude to God, empowered by the Spirit, we strive to serve Christ in our daily tasks and to live holy and joyful lives, even as we watch for God’s new heaven and new earth, praying, “Come, Lord Jesus!”
 
—lines 66-76, “A Brief Statement of Faith”, 1991
 
Question. What is your only comfort, in life and in death?
 
Answer. That I belong––body and soul, in life and in death––not to myself but to my
faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed , that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and make me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. 
 
News

From Interfaith Alliance of Champaign County…

Thursday November 12^th,  2020
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
The Covid Committee of First Presbyterian Church, Champaign, met via Zoom on Wednesday November 4, 2020, to discuss the status of ongoing face to face worship in light of rising numbers of coronavirus cases locally and nationwide. The previous joint meeting between the Covid Committee and Session on October 26, 2020 resulted in a 7-4 vote to proceed with face to face worship for the first time since the statewide shut down in March 2020. A worship service was held Sunday November 1 with approximately 6 worshippers and another 6-7 clergy/staff/ushers.
 
As of Friday October 30, 2020, coronavirus cases were increasing such that the Governor of Illinois instituted Tier 1 Mitigation for Region 6, effective Monday November 2,2020. The mitigation measures included limiting the numbers in any group setting to 25 instead of 50, closing indoor service in bars and restaurants, with no service after 11 pm. In light of the rising number of coronavirus cases and these re-imposed more restrictive mitigation measures, the Covid committee met again to re-visit the wisdom of face to face worship. After prayer and discussion and review of the issues and the C-UPHD website, it was agreed by all that we would not hold face to face worship on November 8 nor November 15, and future dates for face to face worship would depend on the status of the pandemic locally and nationally, and that we would follow IDPH guidelines in terms of making decisions going forward as to when it will be safe to consider gathering for face to face worship in the future.
 
Making note that IDPH re-instituted more restrictive guidelines (Tier 1 mitigation) when the 7 day rolling positivity rate was 8% or more for 3 days in a row, we elected to use this metric as well to call off face to face worship. Noting that IDPH would remove the more restrictive mitigation measures when the positivity rate dropped below 6.5% for 3 days in a row, we agreed to resume face to face worship when our county positivity rates were in line with IDPH guidance for same.
 
We recognized that we could still meet for face to face worship even with Tier 1 mitigation measures in place (as long as there were fewer than 25 people total in the sanctuary), but out of an abundance of caution, we elected to recommend that no face to face worship be held when the positivity rate was greater than or equal to 8%. 
 
Recognizing that preventing spread of coronavirus infections requires a period of quarantine of 10-14 days, we elected to cancel face to face worship for 2 Sundays in a row when opting not to meet for face to face worship. After discussion, it was suggested that the Covid Committee make a recommendation to Session, with a motion to cancel face to face worship for Sunday November 8 and 15, and to continue to cancel face to face worship dates until the 7 day rolling positivity rate is less than or equal to 6.5% for 3 days in a row, in alignment with the IDPH and C-UPHD guidelines, which can be accessed at their respective web sites.
 
Respectfully submitted,
Ruth Craddock
 
News
 
SAVE THE DATE: Join me for a PCUSA Poetry Slam! Sunday, November 15^th. 
https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/presbyterian-writers-guild-sponsors-free-poetry-slam-jazz-concert-on-november-15/
 
* * *
 
Humor (Hard times really need godly laughter): 
 
DID NOAH FISH? A Sunday school teacher asked, ‘Johnny, do you think Noah did a lot of fishing when he was on the Ark?’
 
‘No,’ replied Johnny. ‘How could he, with just two worms.’
 
Good Word:
 
Matthew 25:14-30
¹⁴“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; ¹⁵to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 
¹⁶The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. 
¹⁷In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. 
¹⁸But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 
¹⁹After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. ²⁰Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ ²¹His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 
²²And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ ²³His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 
²⁴Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; ²⁵so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 
²⁶But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? ²⁷Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. ²⁸So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. 
²⁹For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. ³⁰As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”
(I’ll preach this tough text on Sunday.)
 
LET US PRAY: 
 
All you big things, bless the Lord. 
Mount Kilimanjaro and Lake Victoria, 
The Rift Valley and the Serengeti Plain, 
Fat baobabs and shady mango trees, 
All eucalyptus and tamarind trees, 
Bless the Lord. 
Praise and extol Him for ever and ever. 
 
All you tiny things, bless the Lord. 
Busy black ants and hopping fleas, 
Wriggling tadpoles and mosquito larvae, 
Flying locusts and water drops, 
Pollen dust and tsetse flies, 
Millet seeds and dried dagaa, 
Bless the Lord. 
Praise and extol Him for ever and ever. 
(An African Canticle, Traditional)
 
 
Much, much love to you all.
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church

Wednesday November 11^th, 2020
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
Veteran’s Day
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
My father was not an infantryman at home, for he was never on the front lines of anything domestic. My mom was the go-to person for at-home decisions. Dad did as he was told, and was a good, present father. He lived by this creed: If Momma’s not happy, nobody’s happy. Mom and Dad were a team. No, Dad wasn’t an infantryman at home, for he was never on the front lines of anything domestic.
 
But he was on the front lines in the Battle of the Bulge and faced what military historian Charles MacDonald called “numbing horror.” And from that experience in battle in the December 1944 and as a POW immediately thereafter, he began developing a lifelong capacity to accept and mourn what cannot be changed. 
 
This morning I give thanks to God for our veterans, and I remember my dad. This is an excerpt from my book in honor of all veterans. Thank you, all of you, and your families.
 
* * *
 
When my old man grinned, 
nobody could help but grin too. 
—Ernest Hemingway, My Old Man
 
 
I want to carry you
And for you to carry me
The way voices are said to carry over water.
—Billy Collins, Carry
 
 
I am trying to picture my dad’s face as we fan out along the top of this wooded ridge in the Ardennes. This is very near—as close as our guide will get us—to where Dad fought in the Battle of the Bulge. As a kid, I pumped my old man for war stories, but through the decades, I got only a delicate few. His happy face would go slack. He’d look away. My late father told me little about his part in the war he seldom mentioned.
           
I strain to imagine the wartime snow that slammed into these woods as ferociously as the Germans did in 1944, but the June breeze is too delicious for me to envision such a cruel December. Stiff from the long drive, I stretch. It feels good to walk beneath this cathedral of pine. The day is postcard perfect—sunny, warm, cheery blue skies. Our guide Martin, my three sons, and my wife stroll on cat’s feet. It’s just us in these woods. 
               
Dad’s image flickers in and out. His absence is like a presence to me. Even as an old man he wore a boyish, friendly expression; yet, were he here, still living, he would look ancient. Were he here, I might reach out to touch his shoulder and then pull back. I wouldn’t want to disturb him. I had pestered him enough about the war over the years. He would be quiet, as I am quiet now. He would avoid my eyes. 
            
On December 16, 1944, snow showers and low clouds made it impossible for Dad’s 422^nd Regiment to see the Germans. But they were there, and coming. There was no way to soften the roar of Panzer tanks and trucks crammed with volksgrenadiers as they groaned west below this ridge. The macadam roads were a disaster—narrow, bogged in mud, and often obscured by snow—but the Germans charged as quickly as conditions allowed towards St. Vith, the Belgian town nearby, and other points west. Dad had no place to hide, save for the foxholes that tourists would still be able to find sixty-seven years later. They were ghosts, this unseen enemy and their machines. They shouted in a language Dad may have recognized from the Saturday operas he listened to on the living room radio back home in Virginia. These soldiers, however, were not singing.
            
Distant birdsong provides the soundtrack on this early summer day. There is no crowd, no traffic, no interruptions. A few shafts of sun penetrate the high canopy of pine branches drawing golden splotches on the ground that dance with the breeze. My wife Rachel steps from the dappled, cool shade and kneels in a glowing oval of sun to admire the blue bellflowers poking through the ground cover. Our three sons walk together to the edge of the ridge. Needles pad their steps. The younger two look to their oldest brother for cues. Joseph stands silently, so they also are silent. I can hardly speak.
            
With trembling fingers Dad checked the strap of his helmet, cinched it tight, hunched his shoulders, held his head low, kept his rifle at the ready. He could smell the snow and the dirt and the vomit from nervous men around him. He stomped his freezing feet; their company was last on the list to get delivery of army-issue overshoes. His regiment of 3,000 had dug in only five days before, and their supplies were still catching up. It was the coldest winter in forty years. If the Germans didn’t kill them—and they aimed to—living in the outdoors in the stinging cold would. 
            
Joseph, 18-years-old, is Dad’s age when Dad had gone through basic training in Oklahoma and Indiana. It crushes me to think of my first son ill-clad and suffering 4,500 miles from home in winter cold, yet, I can’t stop my imagination. He is damp, blowing into his cupped hands, nearly unrecognizable in uniform, crouched like Dad waiting to kill or be killed. I blink hard, twice, and look at him gazing off at the farms below us. Benjamin and John Mark look pale and older in this filtered light, kindly ghosts of another sort. From what travails will I be unable to protect them, as my grandparents were unable to protect their two sons? 
            
I am reduced to clichés. Dad is so close yet so far away. The sudden weight of missing him disorients me. I remember snatches of half-conversation wheedled out of him about what happened on this ground. The air smells of pine and flowers. Treetops sway beneath a dome of clear blue sky. It is quiet like a church. 
            
Hoarse with emotion, these Americans only recently off the boats and unbloodied so far by the European War effort barked at one another. Is this it? Where are they? Are the krauts coming or not? Snow and clouds had blanketed this lovely tree-lined ridge turning everything a Christmas card white. There was a lot they couldn’t see. So much they couldn’t know. There was no chance of air support in this soup. No relief was in sight. And they had no idea how alone they were and how cut off from the rest of their division they had become. They didn’t know yet that most of them were doomed. 
            
Unless you’re lost, this out-of-the-way place isn’t on the way to somewhere else. Right on the border of Belgium and Germany, there are no stores, homes, or farms in this forest. Besides area teenagers who park up here to make out, the only people who visit are people with something to find, aged American vets, among them, trying to remember where they had dug in when German steel split the dawn and trees splintered and snow covered everything.
            
The grunts—basic riflemen like Dad—waited for orders. Lieutenants, who had trained in the strategy of battle but had never tasted it, checked their maps. They strained into binoculars pointed eastward into Germany. They checked their maps again. And again. They were waiting for orders from Colonel Descheneaux in Schlausenbach, or from higher-ups 11 miles behind them in St. Vith. Radio communications were spotty. Everyone waited for orders—except for the Germans, who had theirs. They smashed through the thinly defended lines on the Belgian-German front, lurching heavily through the farms, crossroads, and towns that American troops scrambled to defend, then abandon. This blitzkrieg could not be denied, especially in the first hours when everyone was caught off-guard, and even if ready, were so ill-provisioned and undermanned to repel for long. 
            
Martin sidles up to me. He studiously follows my gaze. Yellow-green fields spread out below. One field is carved by a mile-long serpentine line of blonde hay coiled in tractor-sized rolls. On another field, a few spindly trees cluster around distant, weathered barns. 
            “We’re close,” he whispers.
             “Am I looking towards Germany?” I ask. 
            He touches my shoulder and turns me around. He points. “Now you are,” he says quietly. “Right down there.” 
            
It is close. And it is from this direction that my father and the rest of the 422^nd and 423^rd regiments of the 106^thDivision had expected the German attack. They did not know that by nightfall on the first day of battle the Germans had almost already surrounded them and were directing their formidable resources beyond them, behind them, to the west. This bulging Allied line is where the battle got its unfortunate name.
            
“This,” Martin said, “is really close, Matthew. Your dear father stood very near this place.” 
            
I nodded. 
            
Everyone on the ridge kept their heads low, tested their trigger fingers, swallowed hard, prayed or pleaded. They weren’t allowed to smoke lest a sniper draw a bead on the lit end of a soldier’s cigarette, but they could blow frost rings into the frigid air. Their squatting bodies began to freeze in place. As soldiers are wont to do before battle, some made their peace with God. Some were resigned. Some thought they were ready. All of them were freezing. All were hungry, all afraid.
            
This was it. 
            
And they waited. 
            
Private first-class William P. Matthews, from Hampton, Virginia, was O-positive, Caucasian, five-nine, and 144 pounds without his pack. He parted his dirty blonde hair on the left and had a ready smile and blue eyes. He could tell a joke. He wasn’t shy. Everybody called him Billy. He was twenty-years-old. In less than forty-hours he would be a prisoner of war.

* * *
 
I have tried to parse the coordinates from all the confusing battle maps I have studied over the years. Altitude, contours, the wide sky and the cribbed forest. Things are different on the ground. There are no pencil marks and arrows drawn on this earth. In which direction is Schlausenbach? Martin has driven us over so many curvy roads, through so many villages, that I feel a little seasick. We have come from the south, from Bastogne. Patton had got to this spot by many of the roads we have just followed. I wonder where Ihren Creek is, and the Schönberg Road. I can’t hear the battle in this quiet stillness. I had thought I might. I had thought some noise of battle would linger. There is no low groan of tank engines, no pop-pop-pop of small arms fire, no cannon. Nothing. I had halfway expected some tired GI to wander up to us from the brush. “Fellas, you got a Coke? I’m dying for a swig of something sweet.” 
            
But none of the battle weary make an appearance. I can’t even hear their cries, and I listen closely, cocking my head at every point of the compass. I can’t smell the diesel belching from German tracked armor and the 25-ton tanks churning the narrow roads below to porridge. I can’t even feel the penetrating cold, which surprises me most. I want to ask Martin if he is sure this is the place. Is Martin sure this is the place Dad stood—these warm, stately woods, this shadowed ridge, this graveyard silence? 
            
Modern, white wind turbines stand like steeples; their elegant tri-blades circle languidly in the breeze while their solid white trunks, tapering a little wider at the bottom than the top, remind me of a narrow teepee, or the white alb of a tall priest pronouncing a solemn benediction. Besides the silted foxholes, no evidence exists that anything but beauty ever graced this gently rolling land. Two hawks ride the thermals ascending from the sun-warmed fields. The Scots pine in which we stand have no low branches and their naked trunks shoot straight up, piercing that innocent, blue sky like arrows. My family has spread out beneath the trees, each of us looking his or her own way, turning over private thoughts. 
            
I find myself constantly looking for Dad. When I close my eyes, I don’t see a man in uniform less than half my age haggard by cold and fear. I don’t see a soldier at all. Instead I see a grandfather with a full mane of white hair as he sits on a wooden front porch swing, teaching two-year-old Joseph how to clap. He wore no uniform, only a contented expression and kind eyes, and a striped polo shirt.
            
And when I open my eyes, I see my jet-lagged family at the end of the first day of a three week trip from America. Rachel still gazes out over the fields. The boys chat. What are they thinking? When our boys look around do they see what they remember of their Pops? John Mark, who used to nap in his lap, was only two when he died a decade before. Do my boys even remember what my dad looked like?
            
Dad was ill equipped to say much about the emotional landscape of the war, but he did say more than once how beautiful this part of Belgium was. Quaint towns. Hills. Trees. Real nice, he said. Real nice. We are here. And he was right.
            
I watch the hawks twist slow circles in that wide, summer sky. The ridge between St. Vith and Schönberg is where the 168^th Engineering Combat Battalion defended the St. Vith Road, the road that Dad had desperately scrambled to find. In a clearing below us, near that road, he and most of his regiment either surrendered or died. If I knew precisely where to look—if Martin could pin point the exact spot—I am certain that I will be able to see my dad before the enemy carts him off. 
            
I’d wave. And this young stranger named Billy Matthews would wave back. 
 
c 2017 One Thousand Miles: 
Following My Father’s WWII Footsteps,
Avenida Books, Matt Matthews.
  
* * *
 
REQUIEM aeternam dona ei, 
Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. 
Requiescat in pace. 
Amen.
 
* * *

Join us tonight at 7 pm for our Mid-Week Gathering…
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.