On a Saturday morning before a show, I sit down and write out the News from Lake Wobegon monologue, about three pages single-spaced. A sensible person would do it on Monday, but old habits die hard and I seem to require a high level of adrenaline to get the job done. On Monday the show appears very far away, on Saturday morning I am looking over the precipice. Sometimes I print out the three pages, sometimes not. If I print them out, I will glance at them before going out on stage. You don’t want the monologue to sound like you’re reading it, so you don’t read it—you want it to sound like a man thinking aloud, so you stand in the spotlight and try to think of what you wrote down, unconsciously editing the three pages approximately in half, rearranging things, and, if your mind goes blank, you grab the first thought you can think of and hang on. It’s exciting.
Ernie and Irma Lundeen and their Performing Gospel Birds came to LW Lutheran last week. Attendance had been poor at Wednesday night prayer meeting and Bible reading, so the elders had gone to a Christian talent agency which also offered them Brother Flem Hospers, the world’s tallest evangelist, and the Singing Whipples, who play among the six of them thirty-seven musical instruments, and Rev. Duke Peterson, former runner-up for Mr. Minnesota and champion weight lifter whose use of bodybuilding drugs reduced him to the level of a wild animal and almost led to his death—he was dead for six and a half minutes and saw visions of the other side, but then he was revived and entered the ministry. On Wednesday night, it was Ernie and Irma and the Performing Gospel Birds who walked into the sanctuary, a full house, each of them covered with birds—doves, canaries, parakeets, a couple of parrots, a crow—there must’ve been forty birds perched on them, and all the birds were singing at the tops of their voices. It was awesome. So beautiful. Then Ernie bowed his head to pray and the birds were quiet. Not a peep. And it was a long prayer. He prayed that those who had come to mock and scoff would have their hearts opened to the message. That shut them up in back, in the scoffers’ seats.
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The birds did some tricks: some did acrobatics and walked a tightrope blindfolded, and the parrots talked—Scripture verses—and the canaries picked out a couple of hymns on a xylophone, which was nice. Ernie told the story of Noah; meanwhile Irma got the birds dressed as elephants and lions and llamas and horses and other animals walking two by two into the ark, and then from the back of the sanctuary—and who knows how it got back there—a dove swooped over their heads and circled the room three times. It descended on the ark, and the ark opened and all the birds rose from it in a cloud. It was good. They did the Nativity, and the parable of the Prodigal Son, and the Last Supper, and you were sort of afraid they’d do the Crucifixion, but they skipped that, and did the Rapture instead, which was like Noah’s Ark but with different lighting. Then the birds took up the collection. They flew around and took the dollar bills out of your fingers on the fly and brought them forward—pretty exciting—and someone held up a fifty-cent piece, and a parakeet took that and lost altitude suddenly but somehow made it back to port.
It was about a forty-five-minute program, and everything in it was absolutely memorable. Ernie and Irma talked about when they were children, which was sad—they were poor and they were lonely, and birds were so lovely and graceful and free. Ernie said he sat and watched birds for hours, and then one day a bird landed on his shoulder and he felt it was the Holy Spirit blessing him in some mysterious way he could not understand but could only accept. For God’s eye is on the sparrow; God knows if a sparrow falls, so we know that God is watching over us. And then four parakeets picked out that hymn on tiny silver bells: “I sing because I’m happy. I sing because I’m free. For his eye is on the sparrow. And I know he watches me.” It was lovely. Two-part harmony.
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And then Ernie said, “And now, to close our program, I’d like you to feel that same thrill I felt when the bird landed on my shoulder. I’d like every head bowed and every eye closed as all of us contemplate God’s great love in our lives, and when the bird comes to you and lands on your shoulder, if you feel that special blessing in your heart, I’d ask you to stand at your seat. You don’t need to come forward. Just stand where you are. And now, the Blessing of the Birds.”
The Lutherans of Lake Wobegon are a very cautious bunch and it lent a certain excitement to meditation to close your eyes knowing that a bird was about to land on you and wondering which one. Minutes passed in silence as people got down to the business of meditation and thoughts of divine providence came to mind—ways in which their lives had been supported and upheld by powerful love outside themselves; powerful evil resisted despite the desire to follow it; acts of love and kindness they had felt called to despite embarrassment; and more than that, a presence of grace in the world that is almost beyond our comprehension. Then they heard a rush of wings as if angels were in the room, and one by one felt a light weight on their shoulders as if someone tapped them, and one by one stood, eyes closed, and felt not only touched by this but filled somehow. They were stunned, especially the ones who had come to be amused and make fun of the performance. Something had happened; they weren’t sure what, but something. Everyone agreed that it had been a mysterious experience.
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For everyone except Ernie and Irma. They’d worked this show for twenty-seven years and seen the Blessing of the Birds too many times to be moved by it. Their take was almost $300 including CD and postcard sales, and that was good for a Wednesday night. Irma wants to retire. The preaching bothers her and all the Jesus stuff; she’s Unitarian. Unfortunately, people of her persuasion don’t go for a performing bird troupe. So they’re forced to work among evangelicals. And there they are in the front seat of their van as they drive out of town, heading for Aitkin, and the last we see of them is Ernie grasping the wheel, big and impassive, staring straight ahead, and Irma leaning toward him, telling him something. Something long and involved. And a dove on her shoulder.