Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-02-08
Monday, February 8th, 2021
A weekday e-mailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Friends,
A Memorial Day to Remember
May 29, 2010
by David L. Thomas
I remember my first Memorial Day in a small upstate New York town. I was either 3 or 4 years old and was taken by my stepfather to view the march through town down to the river. There a wreath was thrown onto the water and guns were shot off in honor of those who had given their lives to their country. I was too young to fully understand all that was going on but it was enough to leave a strong memory that this was a significant time. And I also remember that my mother refused to attend. Having lost a husband and the love of her life in the war, leaving her a widow with two very young children, she wanted no part of any remembrance of the war. It was too painful.
My father, Laurence H. Thomas, was a first lieutenant in the 79th Division fighting in France. He arrived sometime in July 1944 and was killed in action on November 20, 1944. He was awarded the Silver Star for helping to wipe out one German machine gun installation but was killed trying to do the same to another one. My mother and Grandmother were faced by the decision of what to have done with the body (a decision being made by thousands of other families across the country) and decided that he should be buried with his comrades that had also fallen in action. He was buried in the US military cemetery in Epinal, France, near the area where he had fallen, along with 5251 other US military casualties.
No one in my family had ever visited the grave site although there were discussions over the years about doing so. When my mother’s husband died last November we discussed going this year. My Mom had turned 90 in December 2009 and we knew it would not be an easy trip for her but we began the plans.
On May 26 my wife and I flew into Paris and met my mother and my sister Kathy at our hotel. My father got to hold Kathy after she was born in May 1944 but a few days later had to return to duty. She was only 6 months old when he died and I was just over 2 years of age.
On the 27th we took a bullet train to Epinal. The next day we took a cab to the cemetery and were met by the Director and his assistant. It was a beautiful cemetery, the grounds nicely laid out with the shrubs neatly trimmed and the flowers of rhododendron and azaleas in full bloom. We were taken to the grave site where fine sand was rubbed over my father’s name and date of his death. My mother, sister and I each approached the grave with a rose and had our time there to shed tears and to pay our respects and tributes to him and his comrades for their sacrifices. My wife took pictures and then brought a forth rose to the grave site and paid her respects. It was a very meaningful moment in a very beautiful and peaceful place.
What added even more to this time were the American soldiers we ran into later in the day. My wife and I had gone out of our hotel for some take out dinner and ran into two American soldiers stationed in Germany who had come to Epinal for the Memorial Day ceremony to be held at the cemetery. They appreciated hearing our story and we appreciated hearing some of their tours of duty. One soldier had to say a few words at the cemetery and was interested in mentioning Larry Thomas who he had just heard about from us. Later in our hotel bar we met two US airmen who were also down from Germany for the ceremony at the military cemetery. We shared stories and they expressed their appreciation for the sacrifices of our father and our family in the Second World War and we thanked them for their service today, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. My mother bought them each a beer, recognition in part by her of the meaning of Memorial Day and of the sacrifices of Americans down through the decades to maintain our freedoms and those of other freedom loving peoples.
I always think of the father that I never knew (except through photographs and stories) on each Memorial Day but the reality of his sacrifice and the connectedness of those who have gone in the past with those that serve us today was never as strong as it was on my visit to Epinal. And when I was standing at his grave site I thought about how that grave changed my life in ways far beyond what I could measure. Three sisters who wouldn’t have been born if my father had lived, and a half brother that I found out about only later in life that would not have existed. A wife, two children and five grandchildren that would not have existed (my wife would have but not likely as my wife). It makes me realize that we cannot measure all the impacts of events that happen – to know whether those that were bad or those good would ultimately end up being good or be bad.
We go with the flow of life, having faith that a loving God is watching over us. We have no instrument, no scale, to measure how good or how bad things really are or could be. To even know many times which decisions are right and which are wrong. As I stand at my father’s grave I acknowledge another life which I will never know. All I can be sure of is that it would have been different, but not necessarily better or worse. My Mom would have given anything to have my Father come home alive. But if I had the power to change history I would not give up the life and family that I have now. All we can do is go with the life we are given and try to make the best of it.
For those who think that Government agencies can never do anything right, I have to say that The American Battle Monuments Commission does a wonderful job of honoring our fallen soldiers buried in various cemeteries around the world. At the end of our visit my Mom was at peace with a decision she and my Grandmother made some 63 years earlier to have my father buried, along with 5300 comrads, near where he was killed in action. We all felt that there was no better place where he would be honored and respected for his sacrifice than where he was buried in Epinal.
David L. Thomas
Champaign, Illinois
(Retired Chief of the Illinois Natural History Survey, member of the First Presbyterian Church of Champaign, and resident of the community with his wife Carol since 1985)
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Please sign up for the book study. (Call the office.) Thanks.
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. To order through the church request copy by February 10 and transmit check to Patty.
- 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”.
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News
Our Annual Meeting is Sunday February 14th at 10:00 o’clock Sunday morning. Join us for a quick report. We’ll also vote on the pastors’ terms of call. Thanks for joining us.
Visit https://firstpres.church/meeting for the link.
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Just in time for Valentine’s Day is our next virtual dessert…Tuesday, February 9, at 7 pm.
Email zoom@firstpres.church for the link.
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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.
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Humor (Hard times really need godly laughter):
These gems from Marilyn Hunter Shimkus. Enjoy!
1. If all the cars in this nation were red, what would we have? A red carnation.
2. What happens when the fog lifts in California? UCLA
3. Why can’t you buy the Tower of Pisa? There’s a lien on it.
4. Knock knock
Who’s there?
funnel
funnel who?
The funnel start once you let me in.
5. How do you make the number one disappear? Just add a g and it’s gone.
Good Word:
Mark 1: 35
35In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.
LET US PRAY
AN APACHE BLESSING:
May the sun bring you new energy by day
May the moon softly restore you by night
May the rain wash away your worries
May the breeze blow new strength into your being
May you walk gently through the world and know its beauty
All the days of your life.
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Much, much love to you all.
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
