Whenever I visit Baltimore I feel like the country mouse coming to visit my city mouse cousins. Our life in rural Maine is so very different from the busy vital pulse of Baltimore. I wanted to share with you my experience of visiting Redeemer. I am a supply priest for a half dozen Episcopal churches in our area. Each is tiny by comparison and many are on life support. Music is good but nothing like what I heard on Sunday. Your music program is just amazing. It was all the time I was rector, but now that I live so far away from it, the amazement is even deeper. The sermon was outstanding and memorable. I like chocolate too.
What touched my heart most deeply was seeing so many people who have been so important to me. It is wonderful how memories are tinted by the rose colored glasses. Everyone we saw was someone I was so happy to see and they seemed happy to see me.
My home parish is St. Paul’s in Brunswick. That is also Bob Patterson’s* home parish and I see him most Sundays. Sunday before Thanksgiving I chatted with him and told him I would be at Redeemer next Sunday. I told him I only recognize about a quarter of the congregation. He also feels the passage of time and the absence of friends no longer with us.
I feel such pride and thanksgiving when I consider all that Redeemer has and is accomplishing for the sake of the Gospel of Christ. I’m just a little country mouse now. But whenever it is possible, I will visit my city mouse cousins at Redeemer. You all have some of the best cheese I have ever tasted.
God bless.
Editor’s Note: Paul Tunkle served as Redeemer’s rector from 2001 to 2014. *Bob Patterson was rector from 1965 through 1993.