I feel like we are frayed around the edges because of COVID. We are still knit together but have lost some cohesion over the past 18 months. Even our strongest pieces have thinned and struggled to hold everything and everyone together. It’s the nature of collective trauma, surely, to feel forever exhausted and on edge in unstable times.

Still, a golden thread has emerged in our beloved music program in the form of a return to in-person choir rehearsals. Even while we cannot sing to full capacity on Sunday mornings until restrictions are lifted, the St. Michael’s Singers has started gathering again in the open sanctuary on Wednesday nights to learn psalms and anthems together for both personal enrichment and communal worship. Despite some noticeable holes (long-time singers who are unable to join in due to COVID-related vulnerabilities), our hybrid in-person/Zoom rehearsals are a way to regain our vocal and spiritual strength, to spend time with musical friends and to offer our services to the wider community in the form of recorded anthems. Our folk-based Saints & Singers Choir and youth Choristers also return to in-person rehearsals this month, providing some glimmers of color and texture to a sometimes blurry landscape.