Thursday April 29^th 2021
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
 
To Members and Friends of 
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
 
Dear Friends,
 
Note the interesting church history below, written by Lincoln scholar Clayton F. Daugherty.
 
* * *
 
I am looking forward to our Cuba Celebration this weekend. Saturday morning begins at 10 am at firstpres.church/cubaforum.

Sunday worship begins at 9:00 on-line and 10:15 in person. The on-line link is FirstPres.Live  The Sunday afternoon Two-Step will be a blast. When’s the last time you Zoom-danced? (Is that like the moon-walk?). That link at 1 PM Sunday afternoon is: firstpres.church/cubatwostep
 
Here’s a short essay from our travel journal from our winter trip in 2019.
 
* * *
 
Cuba Journal/Monday, March 4^th
Matt Matthews
 
            On the way home, jostling in the church van, I ponder how I’ll never be able to utter the word “world” from the pulpit ever again without thinking differently. 
 
            Thank you, Cuba.
 
I’ll miss you.
 
Sweating men cutting grass with machetes as Carlos carts us as gently as he can to the airport. Pay phones. A man on his motorcycle—with his goat. Packs of dogs on sidewalks watching the cars whiz by. Los gatos in sunny courtyards. The man sweeping the gutter of a busy city street with a push broom. Bulls and horses tied to stakes on the roadside at the outskirts of the city. Palm trees. Packed city buses, standing room only, filled with people of all ages. Trees with enormous leaves, mimosa leaves, shining leaves, hanging brown pods pointing to the ground like wiccan fingers, pink flowers, orange flowers, red shoots, yellow and lime blooms. The sign on the greenhouse hawking plantas medicinales. Fading pictures of revolution on walls, on billboards, on buildings. Old men playing checkers on benches in the small neighborhood parks. Carlos’ smile in the rearview as he taps the horn twice and waves generously to another passerby he knows. On these roads with the holes and taxis and zipping scooters one hand on the wheel is a gracious plenty
 
Our flight to Miami was uneventful. Upon landing, however, we rushed to customs only to wait in line. Robert had gotten an app a week ago at check in that allowed him to bypass this step. He told us to get that app, too. We didn’t listen. As he sailed through customs, we waited like cattle shifting from foot to foot. Cleared at the last stop, we charged to get our bags, which Robert had gotten for us, then to the gate on concourse H only to discover had we arrived seven-minutes prior we would have gotten our bags on our connecting flight. No worries, the nice lady at the counter said. Flying space available should get us to Atlanta eventually to catch our 9 p.m. connection. 
 
In this unexpected Miami layover, we ate. Heading to our gate, I bought a small fortune’s worth of primo chocolate for the beleaguered troops. Swiss milk chocolate with coconut filling makes everything better. It took the edge off. 
 
WiFi worked in Miami, and like junkies we buried our faces in our phones for a fix. 
 
When Paul Simon recorded So Beautiful or So What largely in his Connecticut home, he accommodated the ambient noises common to a less than perfect soundproofed studio. Acorns, for example, fell on his roof and tapped out their contribution to his guitar passages. He and producer Phil Ramone worked the sounds in. “Everything is music,” Simon said, “when you start to listen.”
 
Missed flights, bumpy rides on a cacophonous church van, poison ice cubes, rationed chocolate, migrating at jet speed from winter to summer and back, and dozens of other inconveniences are all part of the song. Everything is music when you start to listen.
 
* * *
 
            Our flight to Bloomington arrived on time. Jay Geistlinger, dressed in a long black coat akin to priestly robes, greeted us with a beneficent smile. He had draped each of our heavy coats over the chair backs at the table near the restrooms near baggage claim. We struggled to get the strange encumbrances zippered onto our reluctant bodies. Our bags awaited us, and, outside, so did the snow. The temperature when we woke up was 95-degrees warmer. But neither wind-chilled, bitter skies nor jetlagged memories of the warm ocean obstructed the bright stars as we stepped into the cold night for the van ride home.
 
* * *

News:
 
The first meeting house 
for the people who started the 
First Presbyterian Church of Champaign
By Clayton F. Daugherty
 
            The waiting room of the Depot served as the first church in West Urbana.  It is worth mention, that just as the Pilgrims did not wait to build a church before conducting worship services but fell on their knees on the shore and gave thanks to God, and, as in the case of the followers of Daniel Boone, who, on the first Sabbath day in Boonesborough, conducted worship service in the kindly shade of a large elm tree, so likewise, the earliest settlers of this community were willing to accept the kind offer of the railroad to use the waiting room of their depot as a church.  It is very likely that the aroma of the boarding house kitchen added a worldly touch during the hours of service.  We might even imagine that the custom of “eating out” on Sunday received its inception here?
            But despite the fact that the benches served a double purpose during the week by offering comfort to both the hotel guests and train passengers, and although swinging doors opened directly into the adjourning dining room, believers found ample inspiration in the sermons that were delivered from the improvised pulpit.
            They were of a sturdy stock, willing to face the hardships of a new community without flinching, yet ready to show their sublime trust in a Higher Power by repeated reiteration of their faith.
            Religious worship was a part of their character, not to be denied by the lack of a church building.  The fact that the waiting room in the railroad station was the largest and, in fact, provided the only available place where the services might be held, brought its uses as a church as a natural course in events.
            Presbyterians, part of a group living in Urbana, or drawn largely from the sections of the Sangamon Timber, made up the first congregation that worshipped there in 1854.  The church had been organized under the authority of the Presbytery of Palestine, by the Rev. Jahn A. Steele, during the previous year, later in 1855, the congregation grew in numbers and found sufficient funds to build a church of their own at State and Hill Streets.
 
* * *
 
About the author: Clayton F. Daugherty (1899-1990) was a Lincoln collector and researcher who lived most of his life in Champaign County, Illinois. He spent many years studying the law career of Abraham Lincoln, focusing on his legal work in Urbana, Illinois.
 
* * *

Remember to reserve your place for Worship each week by calling the church office by noon on Fridays.  This Sunday, as mentioned above, we will connect with our sister church in Cuba.

* * *
 
Humor
 
Teacher: Maria, go to the map and find North America.
Maria: Here it is.
Teacher: Correct. Now, class, who discovered North America?
Class: Maria
 
And Tom Gilmore reports that he’s gained some weight around the middle since this pandemic started. So, he decided to start exercising by getting up more often and more energetically to prepare something to eat. 
 
* * *
 
Good Word:
 
Let everything that breathes praise the LORD!
 
(Psalm 150)
 
Let us pray
 
The Lord bless you and keep you.
The Lord’s face shine on you with grace and mercy.
The Lord look upon you with favor and ☩ give you peace. Amen.
 
* * *
 
Much love to you all.
 
PEACE,
 
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church