GK: Once upon a time, in northern Minnesota, there lived a small band of good Christian people known as the Pine Tree Brethren, who were led by a man named Brother Fred who had carefully read the prophets, and believed that as ye suffer on earth, so shall ye reap in heaven. According to God's plan, they should settle near a rocky swamp in which a tall pine tree grew from hard soil, and in this place they would learn to depend on God's beneficence. So there they were. They lived in cold homes made from rocks and they lived on mushrooms and turtle soup and they wore brown clothes for humility, and somehow they managed to survive, though it wasn't easy. They held prayer meetings daily at 8 AM, 1 PM and 7 PM. The happiest time of every day was in the evening when they gathered around a peat fire and sang hymns about heaven and the happiness that would be theirs in the world to come.
HYMN -- THE BETTER LAND [Cut middle verse]
When Brother Fred came to the end of his life and lay on his deathbed, he called all of the Pine Tree Brethren around him and he said, "After I go to be with the Lord, I pray that all of you will be faithful to the truth as God has shown it to us, and remain here in this cold barren terrain where we freeze in winter and are devoured by deerflies in summer and thus avoid earthly temptations. My successor will be Brother Bud. Farewell. God bless you all." And they took his hands and wept and they sang a hymn about the beautiful land he was going to.
HYMN -- WHITE [cut?]
After the burial of Brother Fred, Brother Bud announced that the Lord had sent him a dream about a beautiful land that they could live in now, in this life, not after death. He had had this dream after eating some special mushrooms. He said they would cut back the prayer meetings to daily at 7 PM escept Monday, Wednesday, Friday when it would be 1 PM. He said it was now God's will that they leave the rocky fly-infested swamps of northern Minnesota and go west to the fertile and balmy coast where fresh salmon and clams could be had in abundance. They would no longer be Pine Tree Brethren. They would be the Olympic Brethren. They said, "But what about the suffering? Where's the sufering? you move out there, you're going to become comfortable and corrupt and worldly." So the Brethren split into the Society of Freds and the Buddists and the Society of Freds remained in the swamp in Minnesota, eating turtle soup and mushrooms, and the Buddists left for the Olympic Peninsula and as they journeyed west they sang about the beautiful land they were going to.
HALLELUJAH
And when they came over the coastal range of mountains, after their long painful trek over the plains, and when they saw the green fields and the forests of fir and spruce and smelled the ocean air, they rejoiced and they rushed to the shore, to a clam restaraunt, and it was 7 PM, time for prayer meeting, but they skipped it. They had a feast of clams and oysters and sweet corn and some of them had beer, and they tore off their brown clothing and they bought green and red pants and even yellow pants and they made T-shirts that said -- ASK ME ABOUT THE NEW JERUSALEM
THE NEW JERUSALEM
The Buddists became fisherman and farmers, and they prospered, and built fine houses of spruce and fir, much more comfortable than the old rock huts in northern Minnesota, there were no deerflies, and no winter, not really. It rained a little, but that only improved their complexions, and in fact the Buddists became so good-looking that some of them went into show-business. They weren't sure it was the right thing, but they put out a CD of hymns --- it was called "The Better Land" --- and it was a great hit --- it was sold in New Age gift shops, it had a cover of the Pacific coast and fog and hemlocks -- it went platinum ---
BETTER LAND CHORUS
(but with last two lines)
In sweet accord, we all will gather round
And gaze across the Puget Sound.
GK:
And after the record came out, some of the Buddists said, "wait -- didn't you change the words -- "wasn't there something about God in the last line" -- and Bud said, "Yes, we changed it. That's what the Gospel is about -- it's about change." But some of the Buddists weren't so sure. Some people wanted to split up the royalties from sales of The Better Land CD and use the money for their personal needs, and others wanted to use the money for the common good, and there was a fight, and the royalties group won out over the commoners, and now some of the Buddists had beautiful homes indeed, with swimming pools and fabulous lawns and tennis courts, and some drove expensive cars and wore imported suits and carried cellular phones and in the middle of prayer meetings --- which there was now only one of, Sunday at 7 -- there'd be a beep and they'd go outdoors and talk to their stockbroker.
And then a sequel to The Better Land came out, called Happy Land, which was made into a video shot in the fog with a drum solo in the middle of it, which was the idea of their producer, Vince.
HAPPY LAND w/ DRUM SOLO
The Brethren had never used drum solos before, but this album sold even more copies, and now people were writing magazine articles about their music, calling it The Puget Sound, and under the strain of success, the Buddists broke up. Some stayed here, some toured with the Voices of Bud Choir, and some went back to the Society of Freds, which still lives in northern Minnesota, a tiny group, enduring winters, deerflies, bad food, still believing that someday we will all be reunited in a happy land.
SCHENECTADY
© 1997 by Garrison Keillor