Garrison Keillor Gets It Right

Garrison Keillor (NPR host, author columnist) isn't for everyone. His rambling style engages some people and annoys others. Likewise his mostly-liberal politics. Me, I find him hit-and-miss, both in style and substance, but he's entertaining, insightful or interesting often enough that I check out what he's saying from time to time. A few weeks back he really got something right, and Thanksgiving is just the time to repeat it.

In a column, Keillor described what he called "a true conservative":

This is someone who believes that the treasures you inherited are probably more important than what you chose for yourself, that your family, your community, your culture, about which you had no choice, are the true gifts and all that you were ambitious to acquire on your own -- fame, wealth, an elegant prose style, mastery of the tango, Jessica -- are less true.

Beautifully put. And it seems to me that a variant on those words is just as good a description of an attitude that Christians should have. Only the treasures would be defined more broadly. Family, community, culture -- yes, these well may be among them. (Such things vary from person to person.) But beyond those, so is our faith, our salvation, our Lord. All the things we want to pursue on our own are petty at best compared to the things God gives to us.

There's more to Keillor's column, and he is, as I say, hit-and-miss. In this sentence, though, he's captured a type of conservatism deeper than modern political labels convey. More important, he's captured the spirit of Thanksgiving.

Hope this resonates with some of you the way it does for me. Happy Thanksgiving!

Comments

You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.

1. Befuddled said the following at 7:28 AM on Nov 25:

Garrison Keillor is a national treasure, a humorist with a conscious of gold.

2. JVR from Denver said the following at 10:04 AM on Nov 25:

I don't consider myself a conservative, but that is one heck of a description. And amen to the Christian variation.

Keillor's done some great writing.

3. Katrece said the following at 12:09 PM on Nov 25:

I used to listen to Keillor's Prairie Home Companion show very frequently. Often, he cracks me up. His sense of humor is so different than much of the crass "humor" in the mainstream of society.

I'm a conservative but Prairie Home Companion, at least, doesn't delve into serious political bashing.

4. farmer Tom said the following at 5:27 PM on Nov 25:

I find Keillor's stuff to be irritating. Too much liberal angst, and a big dose of inanity.

However, I think this is very funny. No offense to you Lutheran's out there.

Listen here I'm a Lutheran

I'M A LUTHERAN
Saturday, October 2, 1999
Listen

(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell, RD: Rich Dworsky)

Hello from Minnesota.
You call it pasta, we call it macaroni,
and thank you very much,
yes, I believe I will have more. And

I was raised in Iowa, went to Concordia,
Swedish, I'm proud to say.
Got a job at Lutheran Brotherhood,
And I never was sick one day.
Bought a house in south Minneapolis
Over by Cedar Lake
If you ask me this latest merger
Was nothing but a big mistake.
Now I have nothing against Episcopalians
I believe in an open door
I'm sure it's good to get new ideas
But we never did it that way before.

Praise heaven, I believe
Praise heaven, I believe
I'm a Lutheran, a Lutheran, it is my belief,
I am a Lutheran guy.
We may have merged with another church
But I'm a Lutheran til I die.

We are a modest people
And we never make a fuss
And it sure would be a better world
If they were all as modest as us.
We do not go for whooping it up,
Or a lot of yikkety-yak.
When we say hello, we avert our eyes
And we always sit in the back.
We sit in the pew where we always sit,
And we do not shout Amen.
And if anyone yells or waves their hands,
They're not invited back again.
I'm a Lutheran, a Lutheran, it is my belief,
I am a Lutheran guy.
We may have merged with another church
But I'm a Lutheran til I die.

We've got chow mein noodles on tuna hotdish
And Jello with cottage cheese,
And chocolate bars and banana cream pie,
No wonder we're on our knees.
This is the church where we sing Amen
At the end of every song.
The coffee pot is always on
Cause the meetings are three hours long.
The blessed tie that binds our hearts
Is cream of mushroom soup
We do not walk through the door alone.
We wait and go as a group.

Episcopalians are proud of their faith,
You ought to hear em talk
Who they got? They got Henry the 8th
And we got J.S. Bach.
Henry the 8th he had six wives
Trying to make a son.
J.S Bach had 23 children
And wives, he had just one.
Henry the 8th'd marry a woman
And then her head would drop
J.S. Bach had all those kids
Cause his organ had no stop.
Praise heaven, I believe
Praise heaven, I believe
I'm a Lutheran, a Lutheran, it is my belief,
I am a Lutheran guy.
Episcopalians I don't mind
But I'm a Lutheran til I die.

Once in awhile we go to shows
But a Lutheran is not a fan.
We don't whistle and we don't laugh
We smile as loud as we can.
If you come to church, don't expect to be hugged,
Don't expect your hand to be shook.
If we need to know who you are,
We can look in the visitors book.
I was raised to keep a lid on it,
Guard what you say or do.
A Mighty Fortress is our God
So he must be Lutheran too.

Praise heaven, I believe
Praise heaven, I believe
I'm a Lutheran, a Lutheran, it is my belief,
I am a Lutheran guy.
Episcopalians I don't mind
But I'm a Lutheran til I die.

5. Michael Fumento said the following at 3:56 PM on Nov 27:

As a conservative, I find his description quite apt. At the very least, he's defining us by what we're for.

Most of what passes for conservatism these days is what "we" are supposedly AGAINST. I mean the Glenn Becks and the bloggers. Among other things, being a conservative means believing in thoughtful discussion and civility. Hard to do that while calling people "idiots, moonbats, moron, and traitors" just because they disagree with you.

I've met bad liberals and bad conservatives. But I find most liberals are just ignorant - as are a lot of people who label themselves "conservative" without having the least idea of what it truly means.

6. Befuddled said the following at 5:09 PM on Nov 27:

No doubt Keillor is divisive. All great artists are. But what you call "inanity," Farmer Tom, is really something else indeed.

I assume you're speaking of his interest in the mild, the seemingly trivial and the transitory. I wondered for a long while how Keillor could be so effective and moving while speaking of such things as the corner cafe and fictional small town rumors. Then I realized that this is what life is. It is transitory, mild and seemingly trivial. We don't recognize until the end that all this inanity added up to a life, and a beautiful and meaningful one at that.

As for politics, Keillor calls it as he sees it and is much less interested in policy than the people, the people he writes about in such "inane" narratives. He's concerned with the individual, how Wall Street is going to affect small towns and how education can shape the lives of our children. He holds real stock in hope, I suppose, but a different, at least more concrete form, than that of Mr. Obama. He has hope in the courage of individuals to face authority and preach the truth.

As a Lutheran, I must say that the lyric you included, Farmer Tom, is wonderful, and to a large extent, true.

It's funny to note that Keillor is Episcopalian now. I've always found him to be among the most unequivocally Christian of artists I follow. He speaks about the transforming power of grace and redemption as much as I can imagine any minister doing.

All the power to him.

7. Paxton said the following at 8:39 PM on Nov 30:

I like that description VERY very much =) especially once broadened to include the truest inheritance.

Thank you for posting it, so that I can enjoy it without having to know much about Garrison =) which by the way is a sweet first name.