Text of the message that Garrison Keillor, host of “A Prairie Home Companion,” sent to “the friends at Gustaf Adolph from some of us at Lake Wobegon:

“Hello to you all on Midtsomars Dag and we hope you get a big crowd for it, or if not a big crowd, then at least all the good-looking ones, as I remember from the one Midsummer Day I got to spend in Sweden – what a brilliant day, and the fiddlers playing their walking tunes, and the dance around the May Pole, or June Pole, I guess, and the air of festivity and lightness.

“Of course you don’t feel that lightness this year, not with what’s happened to you, but you will feel it again, I know, because it is the happiness of God’s grace and it is restored with time. When you get to be my age, you will learn more about this.

“Of course, as good Lutherans do, you are examining your consciences with a steel brush, and I beg you not to rub too hard and hurt yourselves.

“I wish I could be there and put an arm around you – being from Lake Wobegon, I couldn’t put both arms around you, of course, just a sideways hug – and shed some tears with you, and say a prayer for the sick, and then we’d all sing ‘Children of the Heavenly Father’ and look at each other and see each other’s hardiness and the stubbornness of faith.

“The setbacks in life come suddenly, whereas progress is slow, slow, slow. And when festivity and lightness do return to your hearts, it will be even lighter, as a result of all that’s happened. You will be kinder, more loving, and funnier, if that is possible.

“God bless your hearts for not canceling Midsummer’s Day. The north pole is leaning toward the sun, as much as it can, and so are you and so are we. Enjoy the day.”

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