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SINGING WITH THE LUTHERANS
Garrison Keillor:

I have made fun of Lutherans for years - who wouldn't if you lived in Minnesota? But I have also sung with Lutherans and that is one of the main joys of life, along with hot baths and fresh sweet corn.

We make fun of Lutherans for their blandness, their excessive calm, their fear of giving offense, their lack of speed and also for their secret fondness for macaroni and cheese.

But nobody sings like them. If you ask an audience in New York City, a relatively "Lutheranless" place, to sing along on the chorus of "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore," they will look daggers at you as if you had asked them to strip to their underwear.

But if you do this among Lutherans they'll smile and row that boat ashore and up on the beach! And down the road!

Lutherans are bred from childhood to sing in four-part harmony. It's a talent that comes from sitting on the lap of someone singing alto or tenor or bass and hearing the harmonic intervals by putting your little
head against that person's rib cage. It's natural for Lutherans to sing in harmony.

We're too modest to be soloists, too worldly to sing in unison. When you're singing in the key of C and you slide into the A7th and D7th chords, all two hundred of you, it's an emotionally fulfilling moment.
I once sang the bass line of "Children of the Heavenly Father" in a room with about three thousand Lutherans in it. When we finished, we all had tears in our eyes, partly from the promise that God will not forsake us, partly from the proximity of all those lovely voices. By our joining in harmony, we somehow promise that we will not forsake each other.

I do believe this: People, these Lutherans, who love to sing in four-part harmony are the sort of people you could call up when you're in deep distress. If you're dying, they'll comfort you. If you're lonely, they'll talk to you . And if you're hungry, they'll give you tuna salad!

If you laughed while reading this, you must be a Lutheran.

The following list was compiled by a 20th century Lutheran who, observing other Lutherans, wrote down exactly what he saw or heard:

1. Lutherans believe in prayer but would practically die if asked to pray out loud.

2. Lutherans like to sing except when confronted with a new hymn or a hymn with more than four stanzas.

3. Lutherans believe their pastors will visit them in the hospital even if they don't notify them that they are there.

4. Lutherans usually follow the official liturgy and will feel it is their way of suffering for their sins.

5. Lutherans believe in miracles and even expect miracles, especially during their stewardship visitation programs or when passing the plate.

6. Lutherans feel that applauding for their children's choirs would make them too proud and conceited.

7. Lutherans think that the Bible forbids them from crossing the aisle while "passing the peace."

8. Lutherans drink coffee as if it were the Third Sacrament.

9. Some Lutherans still believe that an ELCA bride and an LCMS groom make for a mixed marriage.

10. Lutherans feel guilty for not staying to clean up after their own wedding reception in the Fellowship Hall.

11. Lutherans are willing to pay up to a dollar for a meal at church.

12. Lutherans think that Garrison Keilor stories are totally factual.

13. Lutherans still serve Jell-O in the proper liturgical color of the season and think that peas in a tuna noodle casserole add too much color.

14. Lutherans believe that it is OK to poke fun at themselves and never take themselves too seriously.

And finally, you know when you're a Lutheran when:
You hear something really funny during the sermon and smile as loudly as you can!

It's 100 degrees, with 90% humidity, and you still have coffee after the service.

Doughnuts are a line item in the church budget, just like coffee.

The communion cabinet is open to all, but the coffee cabinet is locked up tight.

All your relatives graduated from a school named Concordia.

When you watch a "Star Wars" movie and they say, "May the Force be with you," you respond, "and also with you."

You actually understand those folks from Lake Wobegon, MN.

And lastly, it takes ten minutes to say "good-bye."

I love Garrison Keillor. I could hear his voice as I read your post. One of the biggest disappointments of moving here is that I can't get NPR reception very well on my car radio. Something about being too close to Canada.

Jodi

HA! The place we rent for presenting performances is a Lutheran Church and the organist belongs our arts group. He likes to relate the story about the time they got a new pastor. The pastor was in the church hall acquainting himself with the contents of the cupboards, etc. When he opened the refrigerator he found it well stocked with beer. "Ah!", he exclaimed, "Now I know I'm in a real German Lutheran hall!"

My kind of people!

Who remembers the tale from Lake Wobegon about the Lutheran pastors on the pontoon boat????

jf

jf, are you teasing us or asking us for help?

Ya wanna give us a brief outline? I know it isn't easy.

I usually have to schedule my Easter Sunday services so that I can record and transcribe his annual joke-show which usually falls on that weekend.

Yes Jodi, the Canadians' electronic countermeasures jam all communications that have a humoridity below 13 percent. Because Swedish fighter pilots ... the only enemy Canada can hope to ward off successfully ... are famous for their dry wit.

Are you SERIOUS? You haven't heard Pontoon Boat?
I need to figure a way to get that to you. The best!

jf

Is now a good time for Swedish jokes? I've got a million of 'em.... And they all start: "Ole and Sven were fishing one day...."

One of my favorites is when they decide their abysmal luck duck hunting is because they aren't throwing the dog high enough.

I also liked the one where Olie asked the mortuary if it was OK to drag his newly dead wife over to Oak street when he was asked to spell the fatal address, which was on Eucalyptus.

(I'm not sure, however, that it would be in good taste to mention these jokes in a religious context.)

I sure would like to tell the one about the Swedish midgets in the whore-house, though...or maybe they were Finnish.....we'll never know for sure.

I'd like to tell the one about the hairlipped midget buying a horse, but it doesn't lend itself to print very much.....

Oh Larry, you know that old tale has just been trotted down the road too many times.

You will be finish if you tell that one

Norway would I tell that joke going south, JBryan. Den,mark my words, would I fur sure be in Dutch with the ladies. Estonia I could think of a way to tell that punch line without resorting to bulgar words. Moroccon than not, however, 'cleaning up the joke' ruins the punch line and sometimes even makes gibberaltarish of strait lines, which is a real spain in the rear, to be frank, (going north off the port bow....Iberialy got that one in,eh? But I czeched it and it's not Ok. )

Italybe nice when the world is safe again for coarsercur language. Till then we just have to figure out switz kind of joke we're going to tell. Lithuan let libya, as Ernie Slovaks always Port Said, though it hardly seems germane here.

I feel as though I have just gotten a geography lesson from Groucho Marx.

Oh, Bob, you are such a card, I mean carta, a magna carte.

Bob I don;t think I can work any real countries into this reply, but I'd like to say that you are THE most funniest person I've personally encoutried. That post should be enshrined....Italybe nice

BTW Kathy - very funny ... I'm a big fan of G. K.