Still Praying After All These Years

I don't know if The Protestant Hour is a regular stop on your radio dial or if you're here by accident. Either way, I'm glad you stopped by. The radio has become steady company for lots of people. I have friends in New York City who fit their social calendar around Garrison Keillor's Prairie Home Companion on Saturday nights. And these friends are not transplants from the midwest, they're life-long New Yorkers who have never worn a seed corn hat. There's something about Keillor's stories that gets under the skin of folks who've never lived in a small Minnesota town. His very particular characters seem to get at something deeper than our differences. Listen to his words from Lake Wobegon Days ~ it's never completely clear whether he is talking about himself or somebody who's just like himself. "In a town where everyone was either Lutheran or Catholic, we were neither one. We were Sanctified Brethren, a sect so tiny that nobody but us and God knew about it, so when kids asked what I was, I just said Protestant. It was too much to explain, like having six toes. You would rather keep your shoes on. It is even easier to say, "Christian" ~ or "I'm a spiritual person." It is hard to explain. Christians are divided into at least three large groups ~ Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant (with some who wouldn't claim any of the three). Anglicans are not quite Roman Catholic or Protestant but somewhere in between. And Protestants are further divided into United Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists of many kinds, Lutherans, Mennonites, Church of the Brethren and Assemblies of God. There are denominations known to many by their initials. UCC, AME and AME Zion, RCA and COGIC. And somewhere along the line Garrison Keillor's Sanctified Brethren, a small sect known only to the people who gathered in his aunt and uncle's living room on folding chairs.