I am, among other things, a storyteller. So when I got a last-minute chance at tickets to see Garrison Keillor's performance (part of the dedication of the UC-Comer Children's Hospital) I couldn't resist. I'd only heard Keillor as part of the Prairie Home Companion programs on public radio - once, I even saw him do a PHC broadcast from KC's Starlight Ampitheatre, which was cool to be at. So I was looking forward to more-of-the-same.
Gee, was I wrong.
Before the performance started, my classmate Kris B. shared with me that she'd gotten an email from Kerry campaign HQ, urging the Kerry volunteers to work for unity and reconciliation. However, it was clear that Keillor didn't get the email. One of his first volleys suggested that, having worked for the Kerry campaign, Keillor's next "hopeless cause" would be a constitutional amendment to withdraw American citizenship (and the right to vote) from Evangelical Christians. His logic was that (a) since evangelicals only have "one book" from which to review and learn (and are so content with home-schooling), they don't need to avail themselves of public schools; (b) since they can trust in the Lord for healing, they don't need access to health-care; and so on. In short, according to Keillor, since God is the answer to so much of their lives, evangelicals didn't need access to "real life" in America at all. The largely-Demoncratic crowd at the UC Rockefeller Chapel roarded their approval.
It was cute - and funny...and yet so unhelpful. Even as I laughed along with Keillor and the crowd, I thought, "This may be what we want, but it is definitely not what we need.
Lord God, eternal Three-in-One, help us find our way from separateness to unity.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment