The Day After

Last night's liturgy was both lovely and moving, even though just about everyone involved in it had The Cold from Hell. The serving team came through in a pinch for no-shows and it looked like they had it planned all along. The choir sang a meltingly lovely Byrd motet of "Surge, illuminare" (which I heard several times because I was early and heard them practice), the hymns were grand, the sermon was good, and there were sweet clouds of Holy Smoke. My altar guild cohort and I were the last people to leave last night; we locked the doors and turned off the lights.

(For an excellent Epiphany sermon, I refer you to AKMA's.)

The church is now officially un-Christmased; between New Year's and the Epiphany someone had removed all the greens (I saw the chapel Advent wreath in the sacristry when I came in last night, but was fuzzed enough by the cold meds to not realize that all the greens in the nave were gone too) and today about half the Altar Guild removed the creche, the angel candlestands at the altar, and the 3 dozen or so pew candlestands we use during Christmastide.

I'm glad we still have the gold brocade up for the Baptism of Our Lord this Sunday. It would feel too bare without it.

A guest organist was practicing on our organ while we were busy moving things into the room behind the organ, but I figured if he was a church organist (this may be our visiting recital artist) he is probably used to having the altar guild moving things around during practice.