Last Sunday evening, my church held what we call a solstice vespers service, where we have a collection of readings and musical pieces, including several choral ones. We currently have a huge choir (35 singers!), and our music director got ambitious with the choral works, including two written in eight-part harmony. The good folks at the local public-access TV channel recorded the service, and have just posted their recording on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni4FxRUz3wQ

My church sent out an email today regarding what the COVID protocols will be when the new church year starts in September:
( the deets )
I'm ... not really happy about this. The state is still running well over a thousand new confirmed cases per day; add in the probable cases, and the state's 7-day case rate is currently 131.58 per 100k population per week. In other words, pick eight hundred people at random in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the odds are at least one of them got COVID in the past week. Granted, the church isn't so big that we can pack that many people into a service. However, with case rates this high, we are absolutely going to have folks catch COVID, and some of them aren't going to realize it; Unless we've found some way to make parts of the Sanctuary magically COVID-proof, running maskless anywhere in the service is just begging for community spread.

I'm even less happy about non-worship activities being "mask optional." Granted, I fully expect that the folks at my church will respect individual participant's requests - but I fear that those mask requests will be seen by some as impositions, and that there will be subtle pressure to ditch the masks "because, of course, none of us are sick". (Possibly not-so-subtle pressure, depending.)

I also haven't heard yet what the plan is going to be for the choir. Especially as, last year, the basses and tenors were singing right behind the pulpit. The same pulpit that will be mask-optional for those speaking therefrom.

Yikes.

One of the most effective ways known to spread COVID-19 turns out to be a bunch of people singing together in the same room - like, say, a choir rehearsal or choral performance. There's just something about moving that much air in and out of your lungs that just screams "superspreader event!" Trying to sing together via videoconferencing apps like Zoom (which have significant audio latency) descends almost immediately into chaos, as the sound goes completely out of sync in about five seconds. And everyone submitting solo recordings and hoping that a good video editor can stitch them all together just doesn't have that immediate feeling of joy.

Out of this frustration, the Driveway Choir concept was born. Get your choristers in individual cars in a parking lot (so we can keep physical distance), give everyone a handheld microphone (so we can be heard from across said parking lot), and broadcast the mixed audio over low-power FM radio (so we can actually hear our fellow choristers), staying as in-tune and on-beat as is possible.

Bryce and Kathryn Denney put together the technical tools needed to make this work, and came up to FPC a couple of months ago to let my choir sing together for the first time in literally months. They've been working with other choirs and musical organizations as well. Today, the Today Show ran a feature about them:

https://www.today.com/video/this-choir-sings-in-harmony-from-their-cars-to-keep-everyone-safe-96400453971

There's a still picture of my church's driveway choir at 2:44 in the video. (No, I'm not visible in that one; alas.)

As of 4PM this afternoon, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is reporting 65 more deaths from COVID-19 (for a total of 5,862 to date), 1,042 new cases (for a total of 87,052) and 8,373 more tests reported (for a total of 469,199). The dashboard's "Testing By Date" chart (page 4) shows a 17% test positive rate for today; However, the state changed the methodology for the testing-by-date report today; it is now reporting based on the date the test was administered (instead of the date the test results were reported to the state). This is supposed to be "more precise and useful".

As expected, Governor Baker announced his plan for reopening the Massachusetts economy. As of today, the "Start" phase begins; houses of worship, manufacturing plants and construction sites can reopen (assuming they meet business-sector-specific requirements) and hospitals can start providing "high-priority preventative care, pediatric care, and treatment for high-risk patients and conditions." Next week, business offices outside of Boston can open, along with hair salons and barbershops. Retail shops in general can reopen next week as well, for curbside pickup or delivery only. On June 1, offices within the city of Boston may also open.

I'm okay with the manufacturing and construction industries reopening under the specified restrictions. Reopening houses of worship, though? The state's safety standards call for no more than 40% occupancy and six-foot distances between people not of the same household. (How one does that in a sanctuary with fixed pews is left as an exercise for the reader.) Child care is prohibited, as are coffee hours or any other pre- or post-service socializing. Worse, no mention is made anywhere of the known enhanced risks of choral singing, such as the superspreader event at a Washington state choir practice (52 of 61 choir members infected, three hospitalized, two dead).

My church is currently planning to do remote-only worship through at least the end of the summer. The Unitarian Universalist Association is currently recommending that its member congregations plan to continue virtual services through May 2021:

In the midst of uncertainty, it is the UUA’s strong recommendation that congregations plan for ongoing virtual gathering and operations through May 2021. This applies to worship, events, committee meetings, staff meetings, one-on-one visits, rites of passage, and more. While smaller gatherings may be able to resume sooner if conditions improve, planning for virtual operations that could continue for a full year is advisable.

Our highest values and commitments call us to refrain from in-person gathering until the COVID-19 pandemic is controlled. We invite you to think of your congregation as primarily digitally-connected, with small in-person nodes that can grow as the pandemic subsides.

As of 9PM tonight, the town of Acton is reporting 151 cumulative cases of COVID-19 in Acton with 68 individuals in isolation, 65 recovered and 18 fatalities.

As of 4PM this afternoon, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is reporting nine more deaths from COVID-19 (for a total of 44 to date), 1017 new cases (for a total of 4257) and 5,678 more persons tested (for a total of 35049). My town is still reporting one confirmed case.

The Boston Globe polled Massachusetts residents about the restrictions in place to deal with the pandemic, and found near-universal support: ( cut to save your reading list )

Virtual church service tomorrow again; the Board of Trustees has decided to do virtual services at least through May 3.

I miss choir. But not getting half the congregation infected is worth the sacrifice.

Yes, "bombogenesis" is the term the local National Weather Service office uses when describing the rapid intensification of coastal storms, especially around the "benchmark" at 40N 70W:( boom! )

The good news is that I don't have to worry about a commute; the bad news is this will probably mean we cancel the first choir practice of the new year.

Yes, I took many pictures during my recent trip to Transylvania.
Yes, I got back a week ago.
Yes, it's taken a long time for me to get those pictures onto the Web.

But here they are, on Flikr:

https://flic.kr/s/aHskvSBjBp

Another day, another few inches of snow. Fortunately, the freezing rain stayed well to my south and west, so the driving wasn't that terrible. And the temperatures even got (slightly) above freezing!

"The Storm Is Passing Over" (written by Charles Albert Tindley, arranged by Barbara W. Baker) was the offertory anthem today at church. Appropriate, what?

Of course, we're back into the deep freeze tonight and early next week. Tomorrow night has wind chill advisories up, with forecast air temperatures below zero Fahrenheit. And the MBTA commuter rail has once again signally failed to meet even its miniscule weekend schedule, which bodes poorly for its performance tomorrow morning. But no point in worrying too much about that tonight.

Church cancelled this morning "due to the storm and the bad driving conditions." A bummer, as we were going to sing Distler's arrangement of "Lo, How a Rose Ere Blooming" as an introit.

The snow has stopped here, with only about eight inches of accumulation. Our forebears would consider us wimps. On the other hand, our forebears would have had the minister living in the parsonage, not twenty-plus miles away over not-yet-plowed roads.

Five years ago, one of my fellow basses in the choir was diagnosed with a particularly nasty case of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The doctor told him his odds of survival were 60/40 at best, and the treatment involved chemotherapy so massive that he needed an autologous stem cell transplant.

Tonight, at choir rehearsal, he announced that his latest CT scan came back completely clean.

There was much rejoicing. :-)

There's been far too much crappy news recently; I figured sharing something good was called for.