Thursday August 27^th, 2020
A daily e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
 Dear Friends,
 
This prayer/poem of Sandburg’s has always moved me. I share it with you again. 
 
Prayers of Steel
Carl Sandburg  (1878-1967) 
 
Lay me on an anvil, O God.  
Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.  
Let me pry loose old walls.  
Let me lift and loosen old foundations.  
  
Lay me on an anvil, O God.
Beat me and hammer me into a steel spike.  
Drive me into the girders that hold a skyscraper together. 
Take red-hot rivets and fasten me into the central girders. 
Let me be the great nail holding a skyscraper through blue nights into white stars.
 
News:
 
BOOK STUDY: You are invited to a congregation-wide book study on race via Zoom. White Fragility: Why Is It So Hard for White People to Talk about Race? by Robin DiAngelo (Beacon Press, 2018). Begins the week of September 14. Sign up by emailing or calling Patty Farthing in the church office. 217.356.7238 /  Patty@firstpres.church
 
Claudia Kirby says this about White Fragility:   “I first started to learn about racial terms and ideas during our studies and projects through our Compassion, Peace and Justice small group at our church.  My first eye opener book was, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander.  It shook my life to the core. But as we have studied and discussed more and more, I realized that until I understand my own whiteness I cannot truly understand the brownness issues. Then change can happen. Christ tells us to love one another and learning about our “White Fragility” will get me closer to that humble love.” 
 
Join us for the BOOK STUDY!

A picture of our friends Ginny and Jack Waaler. 

 
Humor (Hard times need godly laughter): 
 
Sometimes the jokes are super corny. Please send your intellectual jokes asap. These come from our friends the Petersons. (Blame them!)
 
Why did the man get fired from his job at the coin factory? He stopped making cents.
Where did article on the famous owl research appear? In the “Who’s Who.”
Why didn’t the dental hygienist like her award? It was a plaque.
 
Good Word:
 
Exodus 1:15-22         
15 The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” 
 
17 But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. 
 
18 So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?” 

19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 
 
20 So God dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and became very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 
 
Let us pray:
 
Holy God, in your mercy, 
forgive what we have been, 
help us to amend what we are, 
and direct what we shall be, 
so that we may delight in your will 
and walk in your ways, 
to the glory of your name. 
A M E N .
 
Much, much love to you all.
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church