Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-04-22
Thursday April 22nd 2021
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
I am looking forward to our Cuba Celebration weekend on Saturday and Sunday May 1st and 2nd. See details, times, and Zoom links below.
Our partnership with our sister church, the Luyano Presbyterian Church in Havana, is revitalizing. Here’s a short essay from our travel journal from our winter trip in 2019.
* * *
Cuba Journal/
Pastor Daniel is somber. Some days, he said, “I feel like I’m running with twenty pounds of rocks in my pocket.” He was talking about modernity in Cuba. The internet wasn’t working that morning and there was, we were told later, a shortage of salt.
The church van is a carousel of squeaky springs, grinding gears, and uneven engine roar. Carlos swerves ably and often to avoid the larger of the multitudinous pot holes, the seismically faulted road plates, and rough railroad tracks. The van objects every time Carlos yanks the steering wheel or stomps the clutch. A 22-passenger Toyota that isn’t sold in the States, she lets out a fantastic array of groans, screams, pops, sizzles, and clanks, walking tenderly like an old, arthritic woman over red, hot coals.
The grinding, crashing gears are particularly cringeworthy; she doesn’t go into second easily, and sometimes first is impossible, despite Carlos’ fierce yanking at the gear shift. His rocking in the driver’s seat doesn’t help, either, but twisting his face up does work some kind of alchemy and she shifts easily into gear, and we lurch onward. The shift changes are accompanied by a terrifying sound akin to the slamming of sheet metal against stone.
Every time Carlos coaxes this machine into first gear, I fear the transmission will simply fall out onto the road with a final crash of pipes and automotive guts. Even on a smooth road, which I have yet to discover in Havana, the van bounces and yawls protesting with woeful yelps.
Hanging from the rearview mirror is a budded cross, which swings in astonishingly graceful circles as from the hand of a transcendent dervish.
Calamity-on-wheels delivered us windblown, jiggled, and shaken but safely to each destination. I should never have doubted Toyota or faithful Carlos, our intrepid driver, who weaves through traffic tapping the horn, beep, beep, beeping his way through traffic and around slower vehicles, leaving flatbeds carrying workers and pipe, anemic vans and scooters, and slow Buick taxis behind. Carlos is an honors graduate of the Dale Earnhardt School of Offensive Driving.
We’re in good hands.
* * *
News:
Drop off your Styrofoam this Saturday, April 24, between 9 and 11 in the alley between the Church and the Education Building. Our Environmental Committee will be there masked and ready to recycle it for you.
* * *
Don’t forget to RSVP if you want to come to church on Sundays. Call the church office 217.356.7238 by noon on Fridays to let us know you are coming.
* * *
Cuba Celebration weekend on Saturday and Sunday May 1st and 2nd. Mark your calendars now for our Cuba Forum on Saturday, May 1, for the Annual Cuba Forum at 10 am. In the meanwhile watch
firstpres.church/cubakeynote a
On Sunday, we’ll worship with a Cuba theme with special prayers for our partner church in Havana, the Luyano Presbyterian Church. Later Sunday afternoon, we’re having a Cuba Two-Step
Shared Worship Sunday, May 2 9 AM at FirstPres.live.
Cuba Two-Step Sunday, May 2 1 PM
For more information, contact the Church Office at 217-356-7238 or zoom@firstpres.church. The links for the Cuba Forum, Shared Worship and Cuba Two-Step will all be live on their designated dates and times.
* * *
What a great Wednesday night zoom last night, huh? What moment in nature has absolutely taken your breath away?
* * *
Humor
George Carlin asks if we have ever wondered…
…Why don’t you ever see the headline ‘Psychic Wins Lottery’?
…Why is ‘abbreviated’ such a long word?
* * *
Good Word:
Psalm 98 (The Message)
Sing to God a brand-new song.
He’s made a world of wonders!
He rolled up his sleeves,
He set things right.
2 God made history with salvation,
He showed the world what he could do.
3 He remembered to love us, a bonus
To his dear family, Israel—indefatigable love.
The whole earth comes to attention.
Look—God’s work of salvation!
4 Shout your praises to God, everybody!
Let loose and sing! Strike up the band!
5 Round up an orchestra to play for God,
Add on a hundred-voice choir.
6 Feature trumpets and big trombones,
Fill the air with praises to King God.
7 Let the sea and its fish give a round of applause,
With everything living on earth joining in.
8 Let ocean breakers call out, “Encore!”
And mountains harmonize the finale—
9 A tribute to God when he comes,
When he comes to set the earth right.
He’ll straighten out the whole world,
He’ll put the world right, and everyone in it.
Let us pray
A prayer for wisdom.
* * *
A Dove in April Snow
You ask me how I like it here.
These plains are cold and grey in winter,
and winter feels forever when you’re in it,
and heavy like layers and layers of slate.
What pandemic hasn’t driven indoors,
this cold snap has. And everything
and everything and everything is blurring.
Time, for one thing, whip-snaps like sheets
on the clothes line in a stiff wind,
or a flag yanking at its pole, flailing.
My eyes weep away the spring cold,
and my nose runs from allergies, and everything,
everything is a blur, red buds, dog woods,
flowers dusting creation in yellow pollen,
vision, breath, life—a blur of sneezing,
and for two days in a row, this is late April,
snow slashed from bruised skies,
obscuring tulips in the park across the street,
acres of newly-mown grass frosted in slush.
A dove is nesting in a light fixture
beneath the eaves above our new porch.
She reminds me not to rush—she isn’t, anyway.
She is sitting on eggs, no pecking away on her cell phone,
no playing Scrabble with her neighbors,
no fretting a deadline, just sitting, sitting,
maybe in deep thought or prayer, writing
a novel in her head, feathers puffed up,
face tucked in, plonked in that nest of twigs.
Bliss may come from sitting waiting watching.
* * *
Much love to you all.
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
