Following is a quote from Garrison Keillor's "Pontoon," a novel of Lake Wobegon, copyright 2007, as we prepare to officially enter summer.  The words are near the end of the book as Keillor's character, Barbara, contemplates leaving Lake Wobegon for good, heading to Florida for adventure and a new life.  What does it mean to be Lutheran?

 

 "And so we are not a lighthearted Mediterranean people.  We're Lutherans, even the Catholics are.  And though one doesn't like to generalize about Lutherans, one thing is most certainly true of every last one of them:  the low point of their year is summer vacation.  They are suspicious of pleasure.

 

 "An old Norwegian, ugly as a toad meets a pale raven-haired beauty who hugs him and kisses him and takes him home to her father, the richest man in the county, and there is a lavish wedding and the couple retire to their French chateau by the lake, a wedding gift from her father, and the pale young beauty takes the old man upstairs and pours him a glass of Chateau Lafitte Rothschild 1963 and a minute later appears in her diaphanous nightgown and sits beside him on the bed and says, 'What do you think, my darling?'

 

"He says:  'It could be worse, that is for sure.'"

 

God's blessings on your summer.  I'm going to take a break from posting new stuff for a while and war against my Lutheran heritage, seeking pleasure for two weeks in July with Diane's family on our favorite walleye lake just north of Park Rapids, MN, up near the headwaters of the Mississippi.  There is a good chance that at some point I may have four lovely ladies in my boat walleye fishing with me - all of them over 85 years old!  (My mother-in-law and three of Diane's aunts.) 

 

Praise God!