Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-04-19
Monday April 19th 2021
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
Poems from the Corn
By Kathy Villegas
(Submitted by our Tom Gilmore, Kathy’s brother)
Too deep to sing
(except by birds)
First hope of Spring
Suns even words
Too soon to paint
It’s chartreuse tint –
Pale buds so faint
The only hint
The winds of March blow wild
Fierce and Bold –
One day is mild
One gray and cold
But under guise
A promise waits –
It’s paradise
Anticipates
Dark sepulcher –
Winter’s tomb –
From this cloudy myrrh
The rose will bloom.
Aerial born –
A spirit bright –
Death’s pail outworn
Transcends the night
To risen sun
And pristine air –
New life begun!
How old – how rare
* * *
News:
Sunday we had 22 people enjoy the sunshine and conversation in West Side Park. Join us next Sunday, April 25, 11:15-noon and then starting in May, the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month. We hope to see you!
* * *
Need a song? Try this:
https://video.search.yahoo.
* * *
Humor
Thank God for Bill Gambel’s humor: From the pilot’s perspective, flying is long periods of boredom separated by a few seconds of sheer terror.
* * *
Good Word:
Psalm 139
The Message
1-6 God, investigate my life;
get all the facts firsthand.
I’m an open book to you;
even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking.
You know when I leave and when I get back;
I’m never out of your sight.
You know everything I’m going to say
before I start the first sentence.
I look behind me and you’re there,
then up ahead and you’re there, too—
your reassuring presence, coming and going.
This is too much, too wonderful—
I can’t take it all in!
7-12 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
If I go underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings
to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute—
you’re already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I’m immersed in the light!”
It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.
13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I’d even lived one day.
17-22 Your thoughts—how rare, how beautiful!
God, I’ll never comprehend them!
I couldn’t even begin to count them—
any more than I could count the sand of the sea.
Oh, let me rise in the morning and live always with you!
And please, God, do away with wickedness for good!
And you murderers—out of here!—
all the men and women who belittle you, God,
infatuated with cheap god-imitations.
See how I hate those who hate you, God,
see how I loathe all this godless arrogance;
I hate it with pure, unadulterated hatred.
Your enemies are my enemies!
23-24 Investigate my life, O God,
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I’m about;
See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—
then guide me on the road to eternal life.
Let us pray
Holy God, we look back on this week giving you thanks that you are the God of history, maker of time, unraveller of the colors and warmth of Spring.
As we look back, we thank you. As we look forward, we ask you, again, to guide our steps and open us to the song of your Holy Spirit. Help us be faithful witnesses of your amazing grace.
This week, we remembered special anniversaries—
The American Civil War began on April 12th 1861. Franklin Delano Roosevelt died that same day many years later in 1945. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated that same week (April 14) in 1865; the world seemed then to be slinging itself apart—even in the warm beauty of Spring.
We remember last week when Galileo was put on trial for his scientific views of the solar system. It turns out he was right. The Earth does, indeed, revolve around the Sun. Your church has always been wary of change and scientific discovery; those who thought and spoke of such were deemed criminal. Forgive us then—and now.
The Titanic sunk on April 15 in 1912. And we thought the best work of human hands was invincible.
Leonardo da Vinci was born last week in 1452. We’ve been gathering around his painting of the Last Supper—looking at it like a Mona Lisa—pondering our place at that long table in that upper room with our Lord telling us to love one another.
And yesterday in 1924 the first book of crossword puzzles was published in NYC. Our thoughts of You are like a crossword: every word connects to the other, and every word is another word for Thanks and Praise. Such is the language of prayer, the spilling out of words like the colorful trains on long dresses racing through our summers.
This weekend, the Covid death toll climbed above 3,007,838 souls worldwide. In the United States that number has passed 572,155. Hear our cry. We are numbed by numbers. We’d like the pandemic to be over, O God, and in many places we are behaving like it is. May we remain wise stewards of the fragile life entrusted to our care.
We long for the day when we can sing and gather more closely and numerously to praise you. However, if our praise now is anemic—it is not because we lack hymn and chant in great crowds. It is because we are tired. You, Great God, surely understand this half-heartedness. Forgive us where our praise of You has been stingy, and our relations with neighbor have been sharp.
Coax from us a better song.
AMEN.
Much love to you all.
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
