This is not a comment on Kathy's playing. Indeed, it isn't exactly unusual for any of us either to 'feel' or to 'know' that we played badly, or, at least, not so good.
It's nice to know, though, that 'your people' love you and egg you on - even on a bad day. Accept it with gratitude and vow to be better prepared next time.

That said, I have observed over the years that most people have limited discernment when it comes to judging the objective goodness or badness of a given performance or a given organist's usual playing.
Particularly if people 'like' a certain organist they are likely to be 'colour blind' to any and all of his or her shortcomings.
Conversely, they can be merciless in their assessment of a strange organist whom they do not know - even if, objectively, his or her performance was sterling.
People who can't make music themselves love to hear those who can and can, in general, be remarkably mistaken about the true objective quality of someone's playing.
I've observed too many times to count praise being heaped in generous heaps upon the most abysmal playing one ever heard.
I've also witnessed really good playing by an accomplished person who wasn't the 'house organist' received as an utter nincompoop because he (or she) was not 'our' organist, better than whom, it is assumed, no one could be.
I've even witnessed top tier international recitalists give recitals which people paid to hear perform so badly that it seemed an absurd joke - and!, get a standing ovation for it. (In fact, in Houston in order not to be treated to a standing ovation you have to be beyond the pale, far beyond it, of awfulness.)

Some Joys -

Struggling to learn a difficult Messiaen piece (which I do only rarely, very rarely) in which not a note or a chord is either the predictable successor of the preceding one, or the implicator of what is to follow, and yet arrive at the point of comprehension at which a wrong note stands out like the 'sore thumb' and one actually begins to apprehend the sense of it - finally to present it in recital to people who actually did like it very much, some, even, surprisingly saying that it was their favourite piece. After this 'baptism' the piece becomes a loved and familiar item in one's repertory. Yes: I hate learning Messiaen, but, having learnt him, I quite enjoy playing him.

The mystical joys of offering Tournemire are different from those of Couperin or Tunder, but all have their own unmistakable and informative mystique.

Acquiring the mind of Bach, or Titelouze, or Langlais as one becomes intimate with their works to the point that one plays them as though one himself were improvising them. This is pure cerebral joy. It is intimacy of a unique sort, reserved for musicians and connoisseurs.

A rare treat: a sense of oneness with the entire cosmos when entering into the sound world of a given composer, or a particular great work of musical art. This also happens with choral directing, which involves becoming one with one's singers, then with the universe. There may be an element of mystogogia in such experiences. Indeed, it isn't difficult to concur with the Australian aborigines (and, probably, other 'primitives') that music arrives in this world as a message from the world beyond - rather like 'inspired' holy writ.

A sense of growth, both spiritual and intellectual, in the self-awareness of performing at one's peak. At times it is as though one is leaving an 'old self' behind and 'becoming new'.

Sharing a peak or close to peak performance with those who hear, whether within mass or a sacred recital (to me all recitals are sacred encounters - and, I play no music that lacks an 'iconic' dimension). One can sense when one himself and one's hearers listeners have become literally 'of one mind'. There can be an almost intellectually orgasmic dimension to such experiences.

The simple, just plain simple, enjoyment of beautiful melody, beautiful harmony, and sharing these with others. Playing music for them is, yes, it really is, saying something to them - so be sure that you 'know what you are talking about' and that what you 'say' is worth listening to and is aedifying. And, of course, the musical offering and the musical aedification of the listeners is a two-fold offering to God himself.

The friendships that have happened due to sharing the gift of music, or from having studied with admirable professors, and from sharing what musicians uniquely 'know' with other musicians and with others who appreciate and want to know.

It is a delirious joy to contemplate that all our western musical heritage, sacred and secular, would not even exist had Jesus not been here, that it came into being only because of him, that our very life's work would neither exist nor matter but for Jesus' sake, and that what we are doing is bound profoundly to the life, teachings, sufferings, victories, triumphs, and love of our only Mediator and Advocate, the God-Man Jesus. Ultimately, our music is a gift of Jesus (through whom was made everything that was made), so in our offering of it to him we literally 'give thee but of thine own'. What a gift to us! And what an offering to him! What joy in which for all to share!

And, as an addendum to the above, the joy of knowing that our instrument, the King of Instruments is the instrument of the King of kings, for no other instrument is blessed with the existential relationship with Christian worship and its Object as is the organ. This is a wondrous joy - a wondrous joy that was consciously stressed and underscored by the Second Vatican Council.

There are more joys - but these will do for now.

Oh, I forgot one really nice joy - hearing a priest (or even a not-priest) comment after hearing one play the organ at mass that 'you're Anglican, aren't you'. I even once had none other than a bishop take the trouble to come over to me and say that!

Some more joys and woes -

A joy: hearing someone who plays far better than I. This is a joy because I am taught and aedified. Hearing better scholarship than mine is always an exquisite pleasure and a lesson for which I am grateful and magnified.

A joy: teaching thirsty minds the art and spirituality of our sacred instrument. Watching students grow both spiritually and artistically in their music making and discovering what their particular genies will bring to flower that is different from mine.

A woe: those days, thankfully few in number, when one's fingers are like twigs or a ball of twine that is all tangled up, and one's mind absolutely refuses to focus. This requires great patience and the application of a healthy species of self-bestowed love - which never fails to help.

A woe: sitting down with hubris to play what one played yesterday with aplomb only to find that today it's as if one had never seen it before. Another version of this is sight reading something so well that it could be played in recital and then, on second reading, realising that one has to 'work' at it and learn it the hard way.

A woe: (a great disappointment, really) an organ without a full swell, or any 16 foot stops on the great.

A similar woe: all but universal (at least with respect to American builders) is a single tierce that stops at tenor c. Replete is the French baroque literature with the duo sur les tierces which can't be played properly because the single tierce's basse isn't there; further, one cannot play properly such a duo because there is only one tierce in the entire organ. Even some tierces en taille exceed the tenor c limit. Trying to get this across to builders is rather like trying to converse with a water buffalo about the niceties of Shakespearean sonnets or G.M.W. Turner's dazzling and definitive representations of the effects of atmospheric light..

Joys-
Out of this world repertoire. Especially Langlais, Tournemire, and Messiaen. I remember the first I played through Tournemire's Triptyque- I was playing it badly, but I had no idea what to expect, I had never heard it before, so experiencing it for the first time just blew my mind, it constantly surprised me.

Woes- organs are very humbling instruments, as the loudest mistake you will ever make, is on an organ. When it's bad, it's oh so very bad.

Sorrows:

Centenary celebration; organ develops a cipher during the incipit to the Credo.

Y'all remind me of the time I was playing an electronic organ during a wedding. At a silent moment in the Mass before communion, the organ began to pick up a country music radio station.

Concerning mistakes:
I recall once, I was playing a very quite piece with just the string during Communion. At the end, I had a pedal piston ready to bring on the quiet 32'. Unfortunately this piston was right next to the sforzando piston for full organ.

Organs are complex instruments and they can malfunction at the worst of times.

Woes: Today! One minute before we began "Jesu Joy" the organist reminds me of the nonfunctioning "b" above middle c. It sounded like the organ was hiccuping. Someone in the congregation said he noticed and wondered if it was always like this, but he just never noticed?

Joys: I am a mediocre organist at best. One day I was at the console, relieving our very talented organist when I came from the loft and my priest asked to speak with our organist who was absent.... :) I thought I should suggest hearing-aids but thought better of it!

Woes: I attended (briefly!) a recital by the organ class of Ken Cowan at Rice University's Shepherd School of Music (one of the nation's most prestigious) this evening. It began passably with the 'Bach' Toccata and Fugue in D minor, all gussied up with cute changes of registration every five or six bars. During the next piece, Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite, I left, seeing that the rest of the program was similar or worse. (I should have guessed [or should I have???] owing to this being All Hallows' Eve Eve). This deplorable and insulting transcription repertory (what Vladimir Ashkenazy calls 'ornamental music' that, lacking any intellectual dimension, is mere entertainment - actually, it's so stupidly insulting that it's not even entertaining, merely or otherwise) is being churned out all over the country now and bodes ill for the future of what is actually organ music - and the organ as a sacred instrument. This would never happen at Robert Bates' class across town at the University of Houston - Bates is an uncompromising scholar, with whom I share a great love of Titelouze's contributions to our art, and who has made a CD of T's complete works. (He is retiring next spring and I'm very concerned over who they might get to succeed him.)

Woes: standing up on the pedals at the end of a recital after not having remembered to push the cancel piston. I've actually done this twice. I think that others have, as well.

Indeed, Greg - the only redeeming factor in this performance was that the young man who played it was attired in XVIIIth century court costume - peruke and all. I know him. He is a very, very talented young man. It is deeply disturbing to see such as him being taught such unscholarly, really dumb, interpretation by one of the nation's premiere teachers and artists. Clearly, these people, teachers and students alike, think even less of their audiences than they do of themselves. They seem to have little, if any, intellectual integrity.

Joy: playing something, anything, other than the D-minor Toccata and Fugue.

Woe: being besieged by people requesting that I play the D-minor Toccata and Fugue.

of the two, is the worst.

Fingernails down chalkboards.....

Worst is Pachelbel - Canon in D with many repeats.

I am lucky to have a church with a relatively short nave -- so I get to cut out about half of it when I use it for weddings.

I wonder if the day will come when a bride will say that she wants to walk down the isle to one of the Canons from Musikalisches Opfer or something? "I'd like Contrapunctus II for the wedding party, and I want to walk down to the perpetual modulation canon. And we want the crab canon for when my mother is being seated."

This is my score for the Pachelbel. Doesn't get very fancy and it's very flexible as to where to end it.

Fingernails down chalkboards.....

You know, that sound has never bothered me. But let me go to a concert and hear wrong notes...

I wish our pastor had that policy.

My parish has always made decisions based on political maneuvering and never on merit. New pastor just came on board- 3rd since I started playing- and no change. Individuals with laughable skills occupy the ministry, and invariably they start coming to mass drunk... laughable skills become throbbing Train Wrecks. It's so sad to take pity on these faux musicians... because it makes the rectory look completely foolish. I recall warmly the time our deacon rang me up to let me know I was passed up for directorship because the other musician played better politics. That one got fired for drinking liquor while teaching music class at the parish school. Oh well I guess.

Joy: actually being asked for the Dorian Toccata as a recessional at a wedding.
(The celebrant tried to interrupt to tell people that refreshments were being served but I drowned him out, yay)
Woe: once when one of our children fell onto the pedal board, with thunderously loud results

Actually, carrying on from the last but one post, one of the 'woes' I feel is the cavalier way in which celebrants and others treat organ voluntaries, often feeling that they are perfectly entitled to interrupt.
I once heard an organist, so treated, simply stop playing mid-bar and walk out.

Have other people suffered from this?

@Viola: My choir routinely carries on conversations during prelude and offertory. I am suffering rather badly right now with thyroid and chronic fatigue issues, which make it challenging enough to stay focused on the page, the hands, the feet, etc. I don't know how to tell them to stop without totally losing it on them.

Today there was a buzz or vibration of some kind coming from my pedals. I could FEEL it, and I could also hear it coming through the sound system in the sanctuary. Our system has a lot of problems, and I have no idea why the feedback would be coming through my pedals but there it was. Buzzing like a nest of hornets. Talk about distracting!!!

@M. Jackson: I work in a Presbyterian church, so yeah. I have a Rodgers but it isn't attached to pipes just speakers. The fact there was an obviously felt vibration along with the buzz is very concerning...I wasn't sure if I was about to be electrocuted haha.

The talking is driving me nuts. My organ sits in the middle of the choir area, directly behind the pulpit (many curses on whoever designed THAT setup.) So the choir is sitting to my left and right, in extremely close proximity. I will speak to the director about it-she's better suited to deal with these issues than I am.

Joy: having a III/42 Wicks with a great tonal palette, including a thundering Posaune, and gorgeous Viola Celeste II.

Woe: being asked to play the piano more.

I beat the world record for playing too long at offertory in a massive cathedral because I couldn't see what was going on because incense was so thick (yes, it was actually that thick) and so was the guy who was supposed to tell me to stop playing.

I was ready for that to end my organ career as only around 40 clergymen I want to work for in the future were there.
Instead I have had several job offers and was told by one that he got into a zone that was so pleasant he was lost in the beauty of the mass.

Perhaps you didn't play so badly after all Kathy? I can't imagine you'd play badly, possibly badly by your own standards.

This picture was taken after the passing of a law permitting recreational cannabis.

I don't have to worry about cannabis. I am deathly allergic to it, along with a host of other things, and can't be around it. I only have to worry about foggy basses who don't seem to know where they are or why. ;-)