Weekday Email to Members and Friends – 2021-05-07
Friday, May 7th 2021
A Weekday Emailer from
Matt Matthews
To Members and Friends of
First Presbyterian Church
Champaign, Illinois
Dear Friends,
Today our son John Mark graduates with a marketing degree from the International School of Business at the University of South Carolina. He’ll leave soon for a two-year Teach for America assignment in a public elementary school in Baltimore.
Join us in praying for him (and all our church graduates) in this new chapter.
* * *
Here’s a Friday poem submitted by cousin Tom.
i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings; and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)
+ e e cummings
e e cummings was the son of a Harvard professor who left the academy to become the ordained minister of South Congregational Church in Boston. In this poem, cumming’s own theology comes through – influenced by both traditional Christianity and the transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson – in a playful, modernist take on an Elizabethan sonnet (fourteen lines, closing couplet, and a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG).
* * *
Eric Corbin preaches this Mother’s Day Sunday. 9:00 a.m. at FirstPres.Live, or in-person for up to 50-people at 10:15.
Pay attention to God’s activity in the world around you.
Be amazed.
Tell somebody.
Much love to you all.
PEACE,
Matt Matthews
Cell: 864.386.9138
Matt@FirstPres.Church
* * *
On a Sunday in April, we had 22 people enjoy the sunshine and conversation in West Side Park. We will NOT gather this Sunday, May 9. It’s Mother’s Day!!! Join us again Sunday, May 23, 11 am to noon.
* * *
From your Nurture Team — Last week’s photo challenge was a stumper. There was only one guess and it missed the mark — Mark Laufenberg, that is!
Here’s this week’s photo.
Visit http://fb.com/groups/
Please join in the fun! We are running very low on photos, so we would like you to select a photo from your younger years (grade school, high school or early adulthood). Photos need not be professional. Candid shots are welcome. Please send your photos to photos@
* * *
We should hear this song once a year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Under the Boardwalk…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
