Life Among the Lutherans

A worthwhile read. This touches so many nerves, it's unbelievable. An easy to read compilation of short stories that will have you laughing.

LIFE AMONG THE LUTHERANS comes from a Midwest commentator known for his lively and penetrating 'Prairie Home Companion', is edited by Holly Harden, and provides an inside view of the psyche and thoughts of the Lutheran Midwest mentality. Its social and religious commentary is penetrating and fun "....one thing that's true of every single last one of them without a single exception is that the low point of their year is their summer vacation." Both Lutherans and non-Lutherans will relish this.

Life among the Lutherans is easy to read. Whether you are Lutheran, know some Lutherans or just want some light reading that's entertaining give this book a try.

If you listen to "A Prairie Home Companion" on NPR or have read any of Garrison Keillor's previous Lake Wobegon books, you know that encounters with Lutherans come up on a regular basis. It's inevitable, since the tales are based in rural Minnesota. And while GK is quick to admit that he is not a member of the faith, he has an uncanny talent for correctly reporting all of the inner and outer nuances of Lutheran life. (Not that anyone would admit to having such things.) We can find ourselves in his stories, and that's what makes them so much fun to read and to hear. Germanic and Northern European roots still anchor contemporary Lutheranism and lift it nearly to a stereotypical level. Our upbringing allows us to endure cold weather. We are required to respect any authority we run into. If we have any feelings, we certainly never express them. Our first inclination is to stay in the background of any social situation. And if we have to resolve or meet a dilemma, we must do so with a casserole (or a Minnesotan hot dish) in pot-holdered hands and a fruit-filled Jello pan for dessert. These aren't generalities, mind you: they're facts. Garrison Keillor takes these themes and spins them into fictional characters and situations. This book is a compilation of 28 stories that he has told in print or on the air over the past two and half decades. A Wobegon Lutheran "Greatest Hits," if you will. Pastor David Ingqvist of Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church makes several appearances, as you might expect. The classic tale of the 24 visiting Lutheran ministers perched on a pontoon boat in the middle of the lake is probably the most humorous and most visual episode in the book. And anyone who has survived a Lutheran childhood may give a nod to the 95 theses written by a youngster-turned-adult. The need to put long-suffering opinions down on paper conflicts with the need to keep the peace in the household. If only they could be nailed to the church door for everyone to see! But there's a good reason why they never will be, under any circumstances. "Life Among the Lutherans" is not necessarily laugh-out-loud funny -- because what Lutheran would do that, even in the privacy of his/her own living room? But it's a slim volume that's easy to read, and it offers amusing vignettes of true life, fictionalized. It would make a great gift for any Lutheran, living anywhere from Pennsylvania Dutch Country to the Minnesota prairie. And it might be even more appropriate for a few congregations to choose it as a book for group discussion.

Life is good every Saturday evening when Garrison Keillor begins his melodious radio monologue, "It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon" on A Prairie Home Companion. So when his new book, Life Among the Lutherans, arrived this week, I was ecstatic. I savored every short chapter of Lutheran life among the Norwegian farmers and dysfunctional families in fictitious Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. It was delicious--and I'm not even Lutheran. Pastor Ingqvist suffers fools willingly, but he faithfully reads Sanctity Fair to keep up professionally. "A sermon should have a good beginning and a good end, and they should be as close together as possible." Dorothy, at the Chatterbox Café, recently hung a memorable sign on the cash register: "This Is Not a Real Job. This Is Only a Test. Had This Been a Real Job, You Would Have Received a Raise, a Promotion, and Other Signs of Appreciation." All-thumbs Lawrence Bunsen (Cliff's 22-year-old son), narrowly survived his two years at Bunsen Motors, but is leaving for California. "Lawrence is enormously strong but not mechanically gifted, which is a bad combination." Keillor nets it out with wordsmithing insight. "Being a child of one of the owners, he had job security, but for two years they've had to keep an eye on him and to anticipate disaster and to practice preventive management. They sent him off with a glowing recommendation. Our revenge on the West Coast." After 20 years at Lake Wobegon Lutheran, the church board usurped his budget for the annual winter ministers retreat in Florida (the funds went to the needy instead), so Pastor Ingqvist quietly flies to Dallas to interview for the $85,000-a-year airport chaplain job. Their inter-denominational pitch: "We're trying to promote a concept of community here. We want people to see DFW as a destination in itself." No contest. Ingqvist decides he does have a soft spot in his heart for those Lutheran loonies and so he turns the DFW job down. Humor. Pathos. More humor. Irony. Kingdom insights. Funny kingdom insights. And read-out-loud (even to strangers), laugh-out-loud stories. Like the 24 Lutheran ministers on a junket, "Meeting the Pastoral Needs of Rural America." Picture the clergy (all of them) slip-sliding into Lake Wobegon from the newly christened Agnes D. pontoon boat. Splash. I started at the back of the book (page 167) where a former Wobegonian was tacking his "Ninety-five Theses" to the church door. "But then something in his upbringing made him afraid to pound holes in a good piece of wood," so he slid the neatly typed manifesto (mostly complaints about his Lutheran childhood) under the door of the local newspaper. The 95 declarations are worth the price of the book (well, actually there are only 87 theses--the editor lost a few pages). Folks at Lake Wobegon Lutheran say, "We don't come from a siesta culture. It's a work-for-the-night-is-coming culture." (What kind of culture exists at your church, company or organization? And is that good or bad?)