UTA announced yesterday major cuts to ski bus service for this coming winter.  For the Cottonwoods:

• Route 953 up Little Cottonwood is suspended
• Route 972 up Big Cottonwood cut from 15-minute to 30-minute service
• Route 994 up Little Cottonwood cut from 15-minute to 30-minute service.

I hereby declare Joni Mitchell's song Big Yellow Taxi the official song of the Central Wasatch.  "Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got until it's gone."

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After I announced that Krissy and I had purchased a church, many of you had, well, questions. Today I am going to answer some of those questions, and also add some further observations about being the sort of people who now own a whole damn church.

1. To begin, yes, two days in, it continues to feel surreal that we now own a church. It’s one thing to think about it and to make the offer and jump through the various hoops required to purchase real estate these days, and it’s another to actually be handed the keys and be told “congratulations on your new purchase.” It still hasn’t entirely sunk in; I went to the church this afternoon and rattled around in it a bit just to get used to it and I was half-expecting a minister to show up and politely but firmly ask me to step away from the altar. But none did, and if one had, they would be trespassing, not me.

I’ll note that our purchase of the church was slightly precipitate — we have long-term business plans that require office and storage space (which the church provides for, amply), but our original plan was looking a couple years down the line. But when this space went on the market, it was too good for our purposes (and too well-priced) to pass up. We’ve gotten it well in advance of our intended plans for it. This is not a bad thing; it gives us more time to refurb and renovate before we use it on a regular basis. But it was one of those “move fast” opportunities, and we are fortunate we were able to move fast.

But, yeah. Us getting a church was very nearly as much of a surprise to us as it was for the rest of you. It’s very cool! We will do cool things with it! And also, wow, it’s a church and it’s ours now.

2. Some of you were curious as to what conveyed with the church, and the answer to that is: Apparently, everything. It’s not just the space. The former owners (the regional United Methodist conference) left the pews and the chairs and the chandeliers and the church bell and the organ (which used to be a pipe organ but currently is not, although we may correct that in time) and two pianos and two stoves and cups and plates and cutlery and vestments and flags and crosses and big puffy couches from the 70s and, of course, so many bibles. I literally own dozens of bibles now, y’all, along with an equal number of hymn books. One really does get the sense that the former owners were happy to let us deal with getting rid of anything we decided we don’t want. In the short term we will indeed be doing an inventory of the things we want to keep and the things we want to get rid of. On the other hand, hey, I own two pianos and an organ now, to add to my collection of musical instruments. Go me.

3. As to the question of whether the church has been deconsecrated: I have no idea whatsoever. There’s nothing in the legal documents transferring the building over to us that suggests that it has been, and honestly at this point I’m not going to trouble the Methodists to ask. I assume it was? The building stopped being in regular use a couple of years back, and the parishioners transferred to a different church a couple miles down the road. But maybe it wasn’t! We’ll know if vampires try to come into the place, I guess. On a day-to-day basis I don’t suppose it matters. It’s not our intent to use it as a church. As previously promised, we have no plans to start our own religion.

4. Vaguely related to this subject, those of you hoping we’ll do, like, a black mass, or at least something aggressively atheistic at the altar of our new church, should probably settle down a tick. Most of you know I’m not religious in any sense, but I’m not particularly aggressive about that with others, and even if I were, I have no intention of antagonizing my neighbors in this small, rural, conservative and fairly religious little town of ours, which even with this church (literally) out of commission still has eight active churches for a population of just over 1,800 people. To the extent that the building and what we do in it will be outwardly facing to the community, we want to be welcoming, and welcomed. It’s not difficult to be good neighbors.

5. For everyone asking whether I’m going to use the sanctuary area as a music studio, I’ll say the thought had occurred to me, and today as I was visiting I stood on the altar and sang to check out the acoustics, which as it happens are quite nice. However, it’s not likely I will use the sanctuary area as a music studio exclusively, since I just set up a music room in my basement, and also, I need to become far more competent in playing my instruments generally. Guess what’s high on my list of things to do in 2022?

6. Again, we’re still wrapping our heads around the fact this church is ours now — and now that we have it, it’s fun to think of all the possibilities it offers. This is definitely a work in progress, and one that will be in progress probably for a couple of years at least. If you’re wondering if I’m taking up any hobbies, well. This is it. Let’s see where it takes us.

— JS