Don’t let worry kill you off. Let the church help…

   

Irreverence: “a deficiency in veneration or respect.”

Humor: “the faculty of perceiving what is amusing or comical.”

Wit: “the keen perception and cleverly apt expression of those connections between ideas which awaken amusement and pleasure.”

Miss Charlene Mason sang, “I will not pass this way again,” giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

Ladies, don’t forget the rummage sale. It’s a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don’t forget your husbands.

The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.

The sermon this morning: “Jesus walks on water.” The sermon tonight: “Searching for Jesus.”

Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.

Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack’s sermons.

The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing, “Break forth into joy.”

Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24^th in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

A bean supper will be held Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be, “What is hell?” Come early and listen to our choir practice.

Eight new choir robes are currently needed, due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles, and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

The Lutheran men’s group will meet at 6pm. Steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, bread and dessert will be served for a nominal fee. For those of you who have children and don’t know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

The church will host an evening of fine dining, superb entertainment and gracious hostility.

Potluck supper Sunday at 5pm. Prayer and medication to follow.

The ladies of the church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10am. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.

The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday morning.

Low Self-Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7pm. Please use the back door.

The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the church basement Friday at 7pm. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

Weight Watchers will meet at 7pm at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use the large double door at the side entrance.

The Associate Minister unveiled the church’s new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: “I Upped My Pledge—Up Yours!” 

Our youth basketball is back in action on Wednesday at 8pm in the recreation hall. Come out and watch us kill Christ the King.

Don’t let worry kill you off. Let the church help...

Re: Recent TRS Spring News Report/ IEA

Indeed, there are some Illinois politicians who will continue to ignore legal and moral solutions for the state's budget problems and pension debt. They will continue their assaults on the Pension Clause, no matter what the Illinois Supreme Court decides. Therefore, we must be absolutely prepared to defend our pension benefits and rights without apologies, concessions or compromise.

We must be prepared to oppose a Constitutional Convention meant to subvert our only retirement protection (HJRCA 9). We must be prepared to oppose any transferring of the normal costs to the pension systems to local school districts (HB 429, SB 72). We must also be prepared to oppose a Tier III pension plan for new teachers (HB 134). These proposals, among others, are meant to renege on contractual obligations and will destroy the defined-benefit pension plan.

We must maintain and increase the IEA’s influence and relevance by organizing a statewide aggressive resistance of its retirees, current teachers and other public employees. Never before has there been a need for dynamic leadership with a determination to “build the rank-and-file’s collective capacity to resist” then there is now: we need unions that can and will mobilize its membership against those among us who will relentlessly attempt to steal our constitutional rights and benefits again. 

Not too long ago, the IEA stated that “…Going forward… our longstanding commitment [is] to work with anyone of good faith to develop a fair and constitutional solution to fund the state’s retirement systems.” This statement should explicitly mean a re-amortization of the pension debt, and a reform and modernization of the state’s regressive single-rate tax structure to sufficiently address the funding of the state’s essential services and public retirement systems.

“To work with anyone of good faith” on the State’s revenue and debt problems is what union membership expects, but not through any capitulation of constitutional rights and benefits that have been lawfully earned and upheld.

P.S.

All of us should be aware of the ugly connections between politics and partnerships that supply exorbitant money. We should be wary of being deceived again by both democratic and republican legislators. We can no longer afford to endorse opportunistic politicians as we have done in the past.

We know the current “rigged political system” has compelled the IEA and other unions to donate, and sometimes waste, large sums of their membership’s money in order to compete in a high-rollers' plutocracy. Let us have no more nonsensical “Lesser of Two Evil” arguments for choosing our future legislative candidates. Instead, let us break away from this corrupt political system and work diligently at funding and endorsing progressive candidates, months before the next elections. 

Glen Brown

for the TRS Spring News Report, Click Here.