The Last Service

St. Lukes, of Middleby Ohio, was a fine old Episcopalian church. It had stained glass windows and limestone pillars rising like tree trunks, splaying out into ornate fanned ribs crisscrossing the vaulted ceiling. Little stone angels smiled down on the wooden pews, the raised pulpit, the choir stalls and organ nestled near the sanctuary. It had been a wooden church before the stone one was constructed. But it was the same church, because the church is the congregation, not the building. Youth groups, the preschool, the softball league, the quilting society, summer camps, the choir. The church had thrived for over a century as parishioners had been born into it, grown, married, raised children, their children had raised children, and those children had had children of their own.

But for all its permanence, it was part of the world. And the world keeps moving on. Nowadays, children had other things to do. The old congregation got older, and with no incoming youth, dwindled. Funerals outnumbered baptisms. Revenue did not keep up with repairs. The diocese decided it should be shut down. The congregation would be folded into other nearby churches. Shut down in two years. In a year. In a month. Next week.

And finally, tonight's evensong, on a hot day in September, was its final service. The old choirmaster and many past choristers had come out for the occasion. They nearly outnumbered the congregation.

The power was out because the electricity had been shut off early. Construction equipment was already parked in the parking lot. The new owner of the real estate was chomping at the bit to make new, progressive uses of the land.

The minister gave his homily. The doors and windows were propped open to let a breeze through. A bird got in and it was flitting between the chandeliers.

After the homily the choir performed their last anthem. The sun was setting and the light through the open windows had an orangish tint. The anthem was to be Peter Aston's "The True Glory". But, with the power out, the choirmaster was deprived of his organ. What to do? No matter. He stood in the center, gave the choir a starting note with a little pitch pipe, and conducted the choir a capella:

There must be a beginning, a beginning of any great matter.
But the continuing until the end, until it be thoroughly finished
yields the true glory.

There were concluding remarks. The choir processed out the nave, and out the doors into the world. The service was over. The congregation followed. The ladies of the church had provided punch and cookies, and people reminisced and discussed future plans until the sun set and twilight fell.

And that was that, it was finished, and the people all went home.

This was in a reddit.com r/WritingPrompts contest, which required the word "splay", a power outage, and had to speak to the quote "Symphonies begin with one note; fires with one flame; gardens with one flower; and masterpieces with one stroke."