Seeing the “Church Open” sign from my dining room window once more makes me feel that all’s right with the world again — at least with this little corner of it. In the vestibule, though, on each of the inner doors — one leading to the sanctuary and the other to the room we’ve always called “The Sunday School Room” — are signs asking visitors who enter to please wear masks.  Perhaps instructions/suggestions will change once we get Governor Inslee’s promised July 1st Directives.

As for scheduled events — the first to take place since sheltering began in March 2020 was a wedding last Saturday.  And what a wedding it was!  All the men arrived in kilts and the women in ankle-length pleated skirts or other authentic-looking regalia and, from what I could see, all in the same tartan.  Perhaps, because of Covid uncertainties, they had confined the guest list to family members only which would explain the matching tartans.  Even the pipers’ kilts matched.   I wish I had taken a picture, but now that I am no longer the church scheduler and have no interaction with brides beforehand, I felt it might be a bit intrusive.

The other regular church usage in the summer, of course, is our twelve weeks of  Sunday Music Vespers services.  Traditionally, they have begun on Fathers’ Day and continued through Labor Day Sunday.  At the present time,  the Oysterville Restoration Foundation does not have a Vespers Co-ordinator, so Carol Wachsmuth and I have agreed to do the programming for August and September with the caveat that the scheduling will remain flexible — just “in case. ”   All things being equal, there will be nine Music Vespers services — five in August and four in September.  Keep your fingers crossed!

We hope that ministers and musicians and the other volunteers who make the weekly services possible will be willing to commit to a date that could, in a worst case scenario, be cancelled at the last minute.  It surely isn’t our first preference — not how we’d choose “to run this railroad” — but as long as there  are possibilities of a “fifth wave” or some other dread Covid follow-up, “flexible” will be our word to live by.

Meanwhile, feel free to come and visit the church.  You might remember that it was refurbished inside and out in 2018 and 2019, and there are few places amid summer’s hubbub that are lovlier for spending some quiet moments of peace and thankfulness.