Today is Easter Day 2021, and we took a step towards normalcy. Oh, this doesn’t mean I played for church as normal as I didn’t play a single note on the organ today, since I recorded my organ voluntaries and the hymns over two weeks ago!

What seemed almost “normal” was to see my long-time friends in person rather than over Zoom—and we got together for a special holiday meal as we have been for many years. In the case of Frank and Sue Haas, we’ve celebrated all the major holidays together for over 40 years.

Mindful of the need for social distancing, even though four of us are fully vaccinated and the rest are partially vaccinated, I held the brunch at my condo’s recently renovated “Long House,” which accommodates large parties and is located on the 8th floor adjacent to a waterfall and large koi pond. It has all new appliances, new flooring, lighting, and a large picture window overlooking Punchbowl (a dormant volcano).

I made a ham in the slow cooker, a crunchy pea salad, and corn pudding. My guests brought all the rest of the food. The most difficult part of the day was packing up all the dishes, tablecloths, napkins, stemware, silverware from my kitchen all the way down to the 8th floor, which required many trips up and down the elevator! Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the desserts, which included lilikoi cream cake.

And here is our group selfie; we are actually quite far apart from one another.

And here’s what happened on Easter Day in Bangkok, Thailand, where organist Dan Werning went to live.

Penny and I went to Easter services at Christ Church Bangkok, an Anglican “style” church. They call themselves British but there was very little liturgical about the service other than the printed order. It was a blended service with more contemporary (I should say 1970’s contemporary!) than traditional. We heard the small Father Willis pipe organ only as a prelude and soft music during the communion. Only traditional hymns were Christ the Lord is Risen Today and When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, both accompanied by piano, synthesized strings, and a brass baritone (!). The three praise singers were quite good, two females and a male. The organist was a blast. Very nice young man from Nigeria who works as an English teacher here! He is 100% self taught on organ and mainly plays his own compositions, not any literature. He is enthusiastic and says he wants organ lessons from me! For your entertainment, here is the piece he wrote and played for the service organ prelude. Note the piece’s opening theme…