Humble offerings need no critiques

Last Tuesday, I happened by Temple Square at lunch time and heard Bonnie L. Goodliffe play her own stirring version of "Come, Come Ye Saints" on the Tabernacle organ.

I'd tell you what I thought of it, but the truth is what I think doesn't really matter.

She wasn't playing for me, or for anyone reading this.

I got the feeling she wasn't playing for the patrons in the house or even for herself.

She was playing for somebody else.

There was no admission charge, so she wasn't playing for money.

No CDs were being sold. She wasn't after fame.

She was playing for another's glory, not her own.

And her short concert had a lot in common with prayer.

"Just as a child can never paint a bad picture, a child can never say a bad prayer," writes Richard Foster, the Quaker author.

By the same token, a child can never write a bad poem or produce a bad song.

So it stands to reason that a child of God could never offer him any sincere word or song that would be judged unworthy.

God judges our heart, not our art.

And the offerings his children make to him lie beyond the reach of reviewers.

I assume that is why the LDS Church and other denominations sometimes decline to provide "review tickets" to the media for some productions. Pleasing other people isn't the plan. God is the audience. And it can be frustrating when a human critic steps in to ridicule a play or a performance that was never meant for them.

Nephi says: "Wherefore, the things which are pleasing unto the world I do not write, but the things which are pleasing unto God."

I take that to mean he was not going to do a song and dance to get applause. He wasn't out to entertain or impress. His true audience was somebody else, somewhere else.

And soon after making that statement, the writer is true to his word. He includes page upon page of Old Testament prophesy that has been known to annoy the critics and test the attention span of the most sympathetic secular scholar.

Judge him harshly if you will, but he obviously has little interest in pleasing the book reviewer at the Times.