Butch Thompson Trio, Carl Tipton Family, EmmyLou Harris, Garrison Keillor, Jason Keillor, Masters Five. Peter Ostroushko, Holly Tashian,
If I needed you ( EmmyLou Harris ) Miss the Mississippi and You ( EmmyLou Harris ) To Daddy ( EmmyLou Harris ) One of these days ( EmmyLou Harris ) The poor woman's epithet ( Holly Tashian ) Tennessee waltz ( Garrison Keillor , EmmyLou Harris ) Little Benny (Carl Tipton Family ) Land where no cabins fall (Carl Tipton Family ) Slippers with wings (Carl Tipton Family ) Gold Watch and Chain (Carl Tipton Family ) I'll Fly Away (Masters Five ) Wonderful days (Masters Five ) A little talk with Jesus (Masters Five ) Great day (Masters Five ) The old country church (Masters Five ) Be careful ( Garrison Keillor , Jason Keillor )
Bertha's Kitty Boutique Bunsen, Clint Chatterbox Cafe Elbow Gel Plastic Explosive Fresh Kill Dog Food Home Defense Hardware Nashville Rental Dog Pastor Ingqvist Powdermilk Biscuits Ralph's Pretty Good Grocery Raw Bits Sidetrack Tap Skoglund's Five and Dime Tolerude, Marilyn
It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown. It's been warm back there, been great weather for crops, and this is the year when they really need to have it good, and it's been good so far. It's been hot to the point where the Norwegian bachelor farmers have had to remove yet one more layer of clothing.
They are now down to two, I believe, and... Makes them a little bit nervous. They are sweating over it there in front of the sidetrack tap where they decorate that bench for a few hours every day. Been kind of sticky weather up there too. So that out at the Tala Rood home out in the country, the little home where Daryl and Marilyn and their now seven children since they adopted that Korean baby this winter, Liv, it's been kind of hard on Marilyn who does the laundry out there for that army.
She's got a dryer, but of course on wash day a dryer would only hold you back. For a family that size, you'd need a dryer the size of a Ferris wheel. I mean, you need clotheslines because there are truckloads of laundry. to be put out. And with it so humid, it just doesn't get dry.
It just hangs out there. A whole battalion of pants and blouses just hangs limp and heavy. And it's been getting her down the last three or four weeks.
Because since the Korean baby, whom they named Karen, came along, the other six children have not been good for much except babysitting and toting that little child around town and showing her off to people. And they have given up on other household chores so that it's fallen to Marilyn. Maybe it's the same way in your house too.
But she has a feeling, especially as it comes toward Monday, that other people in the house every morning of the week get up and look through their vast wardrobes and pick out something for themselves to wear and try on various things and take them off and throw them down on the floor because, I don't know, it's just not right.
I mean this blue doesn't go with this white so they take off the blue and throw that down and take off the white and throw that down too until they arrive at their morning ensemble And meanwhile the laundry mounts up and these children are using towels left, right, and down the middle.
They need one to dry their little heads with and one for their little bodies and one to walk on in their tiny feet. So that she has the feeling, especially in warm summer months, that upstairs in their house are children who are like little Russian princes and princesses, the Russian aristocracy.
And downstairs, hauling loads out to the mine, is old peasant woman on a babushka. And upstairs there are children who are wearing just what suits them and throwing the rest in the wash.
And downstairs it's boom, boom, boom and hauling loads out to the line so that about a week and a half ago she just sat up at the breakfast table and she said, I've had enough. And Daryl said, of what? She said, you know what? And he sort of did.
Pastor Inkvist has been feeling the same way since a week ago Sunday. Been feeling discouraged as if it's just all too much. It was a week ago Sunday when the youth trio was listed on the bulletin to sing the offertory. And they got up to sing for the offertory.
But instead of Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us, which was listed in the bulletin, they decided they would sing I Believe, which was what won them second place in the district trio competition at the state music contest.
So as the ushers came forward and then up the side aisles with the gold collection plates or bronze, the trio stood up front by the rail and strummed a sea chord and sang, I believe for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows by that great Lutheran hymn writing team of Rogers and Hammerstein.
And Pastor Inkvist, sitting on the bench behind the pulpit, put his head in his hands. I believe that somewhere in the darkest night a candle glows. I mean, Lutheran theologians have gone beyond that. You see, that's not really the heart and core of the Christian faith. the so-called one drop, one flower philosophy.
There's more to it than that. This is not what Martin Luther left the Catholic Church over, was, you know, whether you believe every time you hear a baby cry or not, this was not it. And so
Last week, every Lutheran family in town got a letter from Pastor Inkvist, a pastoral letter, sort of like what Paul wrote to the Corinthians, except it was shorter and mimeographed and the sentences were not numbered the way Paul did. It was a long letter, but basically what it said was that if Lutherans were confusing Lutheranism with, say, optimism or the appreciation of nature or looking on the bright side that maybe it was time for the laity to take a greater part in the service, starting this next Sunday, last Sunday, when he, Pastor Inkvist, would be calling on a member of the congregation to deliver the closing prayer. Well, that kind of jumped out at people.
There was more to it than that, but that's what jumped out at them, was you. next Sunday, closing prayer. Because you see, most of those Lutherans have not addressed the Almighty in public any time in the recent past. This is not a part of the liturgy of the Lutheran Church in Lake Wobegon at least.
Clarence Bunsen was sitting and trying to remember the last time he had done it. It was in 1944. in the summer when he went to a youth retreat at Camp Tippy-Wakon and stood up as he had been told to do hours before, stood up at the evening vespers in a circle of young people sitting on logs around a campfire looking out across a lake towards the west where the sun was setting. quite a dramatic scene, but it barely gave Clarence enough light to read from the index card and the palm of his hand so that he couldn't see the prayer he had worked on for hours to compose and had to make up stuff and talk in a quavery voice to a bunch of young people sitting there in the semi-dark slapping at mosquitoes. and prayed for various things kind of in rotation over and over including victory in Europe and victory in Japan and also in Europe and also in the Orient and sat down and as he recalled this thought he probably wouldn't care to repeat it again.
But he showed up for church last Sunday, as did all of them, even though they were a little leery. They were so curious to see it happen to somebody, they were willing to run the risk of it happening to themselves.
They sat down for church and there was a sense of people bringing in slips of paper with them that they had written things on. and which they kept stashed in their Bibles and which they stole looks at.
People looking off towards the windows in the sanctuary thinking hard as Pastor Inkvist read the text from the book of Job and launched into his sermon. The book of Job is not a part of the Bible that people in farming care to think about at this time of year. Farming is a risky business.
And as I say, a lot of people are deeply in debt out there on the farm. And this is their last chance to be lucky or else. And the book of Job is mainly about the or else. Because Job was a prosperous and happy man. He owned thousands of sheep.
He was the richest man in his part of the country, which I believe was North Dakota, but he was very wealthy. And Satan walked around in the earth and came back to the councils of heaven and God said, and have you seen my servant Job? He was an upright and just man.
And Satan says, well of course, he obeys you and he's Obedient because he's happy because you've blessed him. You've made him prosperous. See what happens when all of this is taken away. And so God allowed Satan to bring Job down low. And his children were killed when a tent fell on them.
And all of his livestock was stolen away and his riches were stolen away. People sat and contemplated this lesson, but also contemplated what would be following the sermon, which they were able to keep track of. Pastor Inkvist always preaches a six-page sermon.
Sometimes he writes on the back of a page, which throws some people off on the count. But it's basically a six-pager book. And it kind of is like an odometer as it goes by. You can count them as he flips them over there on the pulpit. One, two, three, four, five, six.
And as he was coming up to page four, and Job had been struck down with boils over his entire body. Which some people, I don't know, some people have had one boil in a particular part of their body and that has caused them to question God's goodness. But Job was covered with hundreds of them.
So there was no place for him to sit or lie in comfort. He lay in the ashes and wished that he would die. But men were looking up at the ceiling and were thinking, O thou who didst promise, ask and it shall be given unto you, and knock and it shall be opened.
We'll come to thee now today. And Job lay in the ashes. He regretted the day he was born. He said, let the sun not shine on that day. I wish that day never existed. When I was brought from my mother's womb. As he turned over to page five. And people said, oh Lord.
Who did say suffer the little children to come unto me? We come unto thee now as little children, not with fluency of expression, but we come unto thee silently, each praying silently in his or her own heart. Amen.
Job's friends came to visit him there and sat as Job writhed in the ashes, wishing he had never been born. His friends came and sat and they said, they said, Hey, do you mind if we talk about this? They said, hey, let's discuss this a little bit. I mean, look, there you are. You're suffering.
Now, I know this is hard for you, but God does not punish innocent people. I mean, you must have done something to have deserved this. Think back. Think about it a little bit. And his friend sat and kind of discussed the basic points of theology and the whole suffering and grief and pain area.
As Job lay in the ashes and said, God, why did you do this to me? People looked out the window. Clarence looked out the window. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And he turned to page six and came towards the end where God says, I am God. You be still and see that I am God. And Job saw God is all powerful. and then all of his prosperity was restored and he came to the end of the sermon.
What people were kind of hoping by that point was that he'd call on Daryl Tolaroot. Daryl is an extremely shy person and he is a farmer so he spends a lot of time by himself and though he's 40 years old his voice has not really changed. I think from lack of use.
It often cracks like a 16-year-old person's voice would. Sometimes Daryl will walk into the Chatterbox Cafe and he'll sit down and he'll say, well, people wait for him to say something else. That's all there is. He's a man of few words. Well,
I was kind of hoping it might be Darryl Tallarude that at the end of the sermon, Pastor Inkvist would look over the pulpit and say, Brother Tallarude, would you lead us in closing prayer? And he'd stand up. Our Lord, who didst deliver Daniel from the den of lions? Let me sit down.
But instead, I came to the closing prayer and Pastor Inkvist just cruised into it himself. And he prayed that God would strengthen us when the hard time comes on us, as it will come for all of us as it came to Job. That we'd be strong in that hour and led them around the corner and into the Lord's Prayer in unison. Though some of them sounded a little solemn as they recited it.
Especially Val Tollefson who sat in the middle of the second row and who had prepared a wonderful prayer which was a page and a half long and which he had memorized spending quite a bit of time on this wonderful piece of work. He was disappointed and afterward in the vestibule where Pastor Inkvist stood by the open door, the sun streaming in from outside. Val took him aside and said, I thought you were going to call on somebody from the congregation for the prayer. Pastor Inkvist said, I was, but I prayed about it. And I thought, I didn't really have a right to do that.
I thought we ought to let the worship committee decide. Val said, a lot of us were kind of prepared, you know. Pastor Inkvist said, that's good. I'm glad that you were. It says to pray without ceasing in Scripture. Now I went home to dinner. I think that made them feel better.
It had a healing effect on them, I think. Pot roast, sweet corn with butter and salt, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, beet greens, potatoes, fresh potatoes mashed, with beef gravy and lemon meringue pie. What we call the laying on of dinner. Always had a healing effect on my people. Yes, it was good for them.
And it was the next day, Monday night, Tuesday noon, Darryl came into the Chatterbox Cafe and said, Somebody said, I think you were out combining oats, weren't you? Daryl said, yep. How'd you do? 122 bushels per acre. They'd never heard of anybody gaining that much oats. 122 bushels per acre.
I don't know what the moral of the story is. I... I start a story, you know, thinking that by the time I get to the end I'll have figured out what the point of it is. But it's in there somewhere. You needn't trouble yourselves about it.
I just like the thought of all of them sitting in church, listening to the story of Job, but not really, rehearsing what they'll say if called on. Life is complicated. That must have occurred to Job once or twice too. Life is an experience.
I tell you, life is something that when it's done, it's going to take us a long time to get over it. That's the news from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.
History of Nashville. GK first visited Nashville in 1972 and heard the Grand Old Opry from outdoors.
1985.07.21 Star Tribune / 1985.07.21 Louisville Courier / rebroadcast on July 18, 1989.
Archival contributors: Frank Berto