Our male host is a retired music conductor who fills in for organ players at different churches when necessary. They are Catholic. Outside the small but beautiful, church in Schleching to which they brought us, is this beautiful graveyard. Chinese people would want a grave that has its back to the mountain, and its face to the ocean (bui san min hoi), but I’d say this is almost as good as it gets.

He showed us the church organ which was quite a special experience. That’s him in the photo rehearsing. I’m pretty sure this is my first Catholic mass. Not that I don’t remember, but that I wouldn’t have known the difference during my first year in the U.S. I drove my roommate to the church on campus on Christmas morning. It was snowing and the traffic was bad, so she told me to go in and wait for her instead of returning to pick her up later. The mass today was in Latin and German. Again, another mass/service lost on this heathen.

The church is Catholic, and the service outside was Protestant. The Catholics and the Protestants stopped fighting in 1648, after 30 years. Some churches are shared by both groups nowadays, so I assume the setup was by choice. It’s much more interesting outside anyway.

After that, we went to Klobenstein where pilgrims come from all over the world. The story was, an old lady was praying to Mother Mary for protection from falling debris. Suddenly, a big rock that was falling cleaved, and protected her from other falling debris. As you can see, the cleaved rock is protecting our most wonderful host.