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.

If you missed the offertory solo from last Sunday, take a listen to the marvelous duet from St. Michael’s Singers soprano Beth Ilem and Choir Director Brian Fairbanks on flute as they present Craig Courtney’s “Be not afraid,” set to Isaiah 43:1-4.