I sympathize with Charmion's difficult decision to de-clutter her life of the church choir.
It's hard when being a member of such a group determines whether one will stay or go.
I may be faced someday with a similar decision, for now I'm staying with my community chorus.

Charmion and I commiserated some time ago about the bass section in choirs and choruses.
I am putting up with a particularly noticeable bass singer in our chorus.
He is a holdover from when the chorus was with its previous director.
He has a big imposing bass voice and is a big imposing man.
And he admits, when pressed, that he cannot read a note of music.
What he does with the chorus, he does by reading the words, learning the music by ear, and following the other big imposing bass voice who IS a skilled and professional musician.
This was very difficult for him to do when faced with the Bruckner Mass in f minor, a work of symphonic complexity and length.
One time, during a rehearsal break when the director was out of the room, the illiterate bass sat down at the piano, stomping his big foot, and improvised something he called "the Bruckner blues," which sounded nothing like Bruckner.
We now are preparing a program of Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart in which the texts are entirely in German, not one of this bass's languages.
The director is pragmatic about the fact that this is a community chorus and it takes all kinds to build one of such.
I am not pragmatic, but I am resigned.