Quote of the Day (Holly Harden, on Eastertime Growing Up)

“It wasn’t the meal or the service or the array of lilies round the cross or the organ playing or the pastel dresses or hats or anything in particular that made those Easter Sundays memorable. It was all of it together. Getting up early, the hunt for candy, the fight for the bathroom mirror, the walk to church, my father dozing off during the sermon, the smell of my mother’s skin, the mystery of God. And then food, good food. All of it together, all of us together, the whole ball of wax. It felt comfortable and perfect and as if everything was as it should be.

“Tough to recognize a moment you’ll long for one day when you’re in it. Sure is.”— Holly Harden, Good Food from Mrs. Sundberg's Kitchen (2014)

Holly Harden has been a writer for Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, as well as for one the more popular parts of the legendary show’s Web site, “The View From Mrs. Sundberg’s Window.” Now, to be sure, the recipes included in her new book sound scrumptious, but even if you’re not a foodie, what will linger with you long afterward are not just the taste of the comfort food she describes but her tactile evocation of small-town life in the Midwest. She leaves you, as here, not only with a smile but with a catch in the throat. Remarkable stuff, a perfect blend of art and heart.

Quote of the Day (Garrison Keillor, on Post-Church Ideals and Reality)

“Sometimes when you walk out that door after church, you are inspired and expect things to look different—expect to walk out and be in the New Jerusalem—and it’s a disappointment to see it’s still Lake Wobegon. A vacant lot across the street, dogs running around, the Dieners’ house unpainted and two broken-down cars in the backyard, and the back door of the Sidetrack Tap—the scene of so much illness and unhappiness over the years. But even here there is a star to follow and we may come through.”—Garrison Keillor, Life Among the Lutherans, edited by Holly Harden (2009)

You can almost hear that unforgettable, legendary voice even here, on the printed page, with this collection of radio monologues from A Prairie Home Companion’s Garrison Keillor. Whether or not he follows through on his plan to retire in 2013 or whatever timetable he has in mind, I’m sure we’ll be hearing that voice, in some fashion or another, for a long time to come.

And if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to hear more of his editor on this volume. For more on the enormously talented writer Holly Harden, see the profile of her on pages 28-31 in St. Olaf Magazine here.

(Garrison Keillor pictured here during a rainy 2007 outdoor broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion.)

Quote of the Day (Garrison Keillor, on the Ties That Bind)

“You can never break your connection to people you love. You may think you do, and years may pass, and you never think of them, but they always return to you.”—Garrison Keillor, Life Among the Lutherans, edited by Holly Harden (2009)

You can never break your connection to the audience that loves your work, either. Today would be an appropriate day for some prayers—from Lutherans and all others (including the Catholic who writes this blog)—wishing Garrison Keillor a rapid and complete recovery from the minor stroke he suffered this past week, so he can return soon to broadcasting the doings of Pastor Ingqvist and the other denizens of Lake Wobegon.