Two Dozen Potted Cacti

 

It’s been my privilege so serve as organist in nearly every congregation I’ve lived in since my teens. Some chapels had organs and some didn’t. Some met in grand buildings dedicated to the Lord; others were in secular spaces that filled different purposes on weekdays. I remember asking my bishopric (now I think of it, it was probably a branch presidency) for permission to sing Silent Night with the congregation accompanied only by an acoustic guitar, the way the hymn was originally heard. I was shut down pretty hard. The counselor was in his sixties (he may have been younger than I am now). He said whenever he heard a guitar (pronounced GEE-tar), he knew he was listening to Satan’s music. Such a thing was inappropriate in a worship service. Today we sing hymns I never dreamed I’d hear in an LDS chapel - sometimes with guitar. Maybe someday, we’ll have trumpets and cymbals there. Like in the Old Testament.