How shall I keep from singing?

The vicar preached on ‘Money’ today – always a tricky subject. But I wonder how many of the congregation noticed that, immediately afterwards, the intercessions were read by a young man by the name of ‘Rich’?
The morning anthem was the chorale, ‘Lord I trust thee’ by Handel, but sounding more like Bach. However, we got to have a go at some Bach in the evening service instead – ‘King of Glory, King of Peace’. The service ended with some more Bach – an organ prelude and fugue (E minor). Our organist must have used his usual subtle touch of humour when deciding what to play after the Eucharist – given the morning’s sermon theme, I imagined the ‘Queen of Sheba’ (courtesy of Handel) arriving at church with her gifts of spices, jewels, carvings and – apparently – 4.5 tons of gold. That would be more than enough to repair the church roof for the next few years, at least.

……And the tins of baked beans. The harvest offerings were mostly fruit and veg, and some rather delicious-looking home-made marmalade. After a long absence, the brownies turned up again and sat in the front row. Which they rather regretted when it was time for the sermon, or rather, the Inquisition. No brownie worth their salt dare doze off and be incapable of answering the question. Fortunately, the choir were behind the priest as we did not know any of the answers anyway. We were told that our rendition of ‘Look at the World’ by Rutter brought tears to people’s eyes. I’m never sure whether that is a good thing or not.

The choir were much more comfortable with the staple evening fare – Festival Evensong with Noble in B Minor and ‘The Heavens are Telling’ (Haydn), which is always a good let-our-hair-down rant.

The church was decorated with helium balloons declaring ‘welcome’, the Bishop was in attendance and one person was being baptised as well as confirmed. Two of the younger confirmands were from the choir; the others ranged in age from ten to eighty. Our anthem, ‘O taste and see’ (Vaughan Williams) went well – it certainly helped singing it from the bell tower steps as we were closer together and able to see the conductor better. After the service, we practised what we preached – with champagne provided by a chorister celebrating his 40th wedding anniversary, followed by wine, cake and coffee. The church was packed and because the vicar wanted to personally greet everyone who had come ‘Back to Church’ – and give them chocolate – there was a huge bottleneck at the door.

We had to make a quick getaway over to Buckfast Abbey for the Chamber Choir concert (more motets and a Schubert Mass) before dashing back across the moor for the daughter church evening service and Compline. Our carbon footprint was large this Sunday – I hope the creator didn’t mind.
It was hard to sing well with only a few candles for illumination, plus a modern Compline service which we had never sung before. Fortunately, the anthem – ‘Lead me Lord’ (Wesley) was well-known, so that passed without a hitch.
By the end of the day I was all churched out.