Living up here in the North and with our partnership with Minnesota North this is a hard blog to write. I have tried to terrorize folks with stories of e coli and giardia and swimmers itch but to no avail. The depopulation of parts of this state as folks run “to the lake” is reaching crisis proportions on the weekend and small “lake less”rural churches are suffering disproportionately. Since Minnesota is a blue state and as such is familiar with concepts like confiscation, reparations, and fairness, I had thought that my suggestion that lake churches share their offering with lake less ones would be met with the gentle spirit of the Jerusalem conference where the pillars told Paul to “remember the poor”, which he was anxious to do. I was mistaken. I was also mistaken in the notion that an environmental State like Minnesota would recognize that hundreds of people standing around waist deep in Lake Minnetonka and using the Lake as a toilet might be a bad idea.
I broached my idea of reparations to Minnesota North and as the old litotes says, there was “no little controversy”. One Pastor told me that he loses people to the lakes as well. His folks leave and go to a lake a hundred miles away. Evidently familiarity brreds contempt and the lake in their back yard had somehow lost it’s appeal. Either that or the hoards of folks from lake leass places was too much to deal with, whatever. The lack of sympathy was stunning. Where is the mercy? So after a rather nasty confrontation I did what defeated and rejected folks have done for years, I wrote a ballad. I tried to write my own melody but the haunting, desultory, heart wrenching tune from 1962 works.
“They Went to the Lake”
Sung to the Tune of “The End of the World” by Skeeter Davis (Arthur Kent and Sylvia Dee)
Why are the pews cold and empty? Why the one sad bare offering plate?
The people aren’t gone because the rapture took them off, their gone because they went to the lake.
Why is the organ strangely silent? We sing to a computer and that takes the cake.
The organists aren’t sick or hospitalized, they are gone because they went to the lake.
Bridge: Jesus said where two or three were gathered together, he would be there and answer their pleas.
His disciples watched as he walked on the waves but I can’t imagine him on water skis’.
Why is the communion hymn finished quickly? The computer plays three verses in one take.
The rapture didn’t take all the people away, their gone because they went to the lake.
Bridge: Some Pastors say that I should quit complaining. All things will come around they say in time. But I can’t be amused when they
laugh at me and say, “think of all the money your saving on the wine”.
Why is the bulletin box overflowing? Why is the mite box running low? The rapture didn’t take all the people away, their gone because they
went to the lake.
Bridge; Someone said to me that lake season is ending and I have been around enough that I should know. What they don’t understand is
when they close the lake place up, they’ll be heading down to Mesa before the snow.
Why are the pews cold and empty? Why the one sad bare offering plate?
The people aren’t gone because the rapture took them off, their gone because they went to the lake.
