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Last week we heard from Tom Drake who sent us a thumb drive that contains a video and photographs of the Church of the Good Shepherd.

Tom visited Good Shepherd last July before the rains. He had been in touch and arranged to visit and to photograph the church and several others in the Scranton area. His video is very impressive.

You can have a look at it on his You Tube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfoTBIsOAk484yzX3ogb9KA/featured). Once there, click on Videos to see the thumbnail photographs of the churches he visited last summer in our area. The video of Good Shepherd is one among them, and it may be located here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wW9Od1drLo).

He says on a page of his channel: “While nothing is off limits, my primary subjects are churches, architecture, and travel.” I am not certain of this, but I think he is from Northeastern Pennsylvania. I know he lives now in Smyrna, Tennessee, which is not far from Nashville. He is devoted to his hobby, and it is important to bear in mind how valuable our church is to someone who takes it not for granted.

I think that our experience of God is often that way: we get used to God’s blessings and take them as our own as a matter of course. But certainly it is foolish to do that. We have to remember that God’s blessings continue into eternity if we but have the ability to recognize them for what they are. And recognizing God’s blessings is to be fully alive, “ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,” as we sing in the great hymn (Hymn 410).