WHAT SWEETER MUSIC, what bitter irony

Our Schola performed Mark Hayes' WHAT SWEETER MUSIC for our annual Nativity Concert this afternoon. We also added some single pieces prior. This has been a quite taxing year and fall/winter. Happily, this cantata, as all of Mark Haye's work is demanding but not esoterically demanding.
The audience that came was beyond expectation, even after 21 years of concertizing for both paschal and nativity seasons. We printed 200 programs and they were virtually all taken up. Thank you, people of TCCoV. The concert came in at about an hour ten.
For my part, I was so proud of my basses, the two of them, who so kept in sync and never missed some very exposed entrances on David Basden's amazing AVE MARIA. And so enamoured of my wife (and daughter), but when my wife of soon forty years sailed up to high G's, I couldn't have been more humbled to be her husband. The remainder of the concert, not recorded by any of us, will be told by those in attendance. It's spirit was so ALIVE.
The irony. As soon as the concert was over I had to leave to do music ministry for our mission church out in Goshen. Why is that ironic? The two people who, by deliberate action of their own volition precipitated the dismissal of two incredible Christians and musicians from our team, and who ultimately desire the implosion and destruction of 21 years of music ministry of which one of them was invited to rejoin after a self-imposed resignation, had the hubris to attend the concert. What did they expect to encounter? Disarray? Open wounds from their assault upon the parish integrity? Well, look, listen and behold. Weave your false web of deceptions and falsehoods and self-righteous condemnation, we are NOT GOING AWAY. We are of Christ. I cannot say to whom you've sworn allegiance. We sing for Christ, the Living Son of God, the founder of our Church and the path to the Father Almighty. That's it. Either you get that or you don't. But, in ironic parody of the civil rights anthem, "You sha'n't overcome."
Do well. Seek forgiveness and repentence as all of us have. The injury you so lament was self-inflicted and whatever salve you seek in civil society cannot, therefore, be expected from the Lord of Life. I have turned cheek after cheek and will proceed to continue thus. But you will not prevail. Because the power of Christ will compel you to cease your infestation. Repent now, while you can. Because I will still go to Goshen because of you, I will not renounce nor relent from what I know, in my heart, is right and of God.
I hope you enjoyed what part of the concert you stayed to hear. It truly was sweeter music than the discord you have played for years, if not decades. For my part, I truly wish peace upon your souls. I can do no further.