Immersed in Laughter

Sometimes you just have to let it out.

Laughter is a release, especially when we laugh at something so unexpected, so incredible, so absurd or embarrassing that we can’t react to it any other way. Laughter can lighten the load of an event that might otherwise weigh heavy. That’s why I still laugh at something that happened to me decades ago.  

During my high school years I had a buddy whose parents owned a ski boat, and on many hot summer Sundays he would haul my friends and me around a recreational lake in Texas. At first we rode inner tubes behind the boat, holding on tightly as we tried to avoid flipping over and enduring a high-speed drenching. Later we advanced to the greater challenge of water skiing, gradually able to stand up straight on two planks for a few minutes. Though it was a significant advancement, our rudimentary skill level forced us to count success as simply avoiding a face plant on the lake’s surface. 

One monumental moment from those days is burned into my memory banks (and engraved on my conscience). On one of our outings as I entered the water for my turn on the skis, we noticed a crowd gathered on the shore about a hundred yards away. Curious, I directed the boat’s driver to take us over for a closer look. With me tethered to the skis and gripping the tow rope, my friends and I jetted across the water with one purpose: to solve the mystery of why such a crowd had amassed, and perhaps even join them in whatever event had attracted their attention.  

The sun was in my eyes as the boat neared the gathering, but I could tell that the crowd was silent and still, every eye fixed on two people out in the water about fifty feet from shore. My mind raced. Was someone drowning? I thought. Should we come to the rescue? My driver friend must have sensed an emergency too, because he bore down on the throttle, racing straight ahead toward the duo in the water. As we closed in on them, the boat slowed and I almost lost my balance as the churning wake washed under me toward the pair. I managed to stay upright, still uncertain what the two were doing in the waist-deep water. Drifting in closer, I was finally near enough to see the reason for their presence. My uncertainty turned to shock when it suddenly dawned on me what I was witnessing. 

I had skied right into the middle of a church’s outdoor baptismal service. 

Red faced, I continued to skim over the water in my unwavering course, coming close enough to see the astonishment in the eyes of the baptizer, and the closed eyes of the baptizee as he braced against the boat-generated wave headed his way. I watched, anticipating his inevitable and premature immersion, and all I could think about were the words of an old hymn I had sung as a child: “Oh the deep deep love of Jesus/Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me.” Just as the swell hit the young man and drove him under, my friends obviously decided it was time to leave, because the boat turned sharply and I almost toppled. I desperately held on as we made an abrupt about-face, sped off, and put some distance between us and our embarrassment. 

When we were far enough away, the boat stopped, I let go of the rope and, still shaken, paddled toward my buddies. For a minute no one said a word, all of us rattled by the irreverent scene we had just generated. I couldn’t wipe from my mind the pained expressions of the two people whose sacrament I had just interrupted. I couldn’t stop thinking about the horrible (and justified) opinions of us the people on shore must have formed. Speechless, I hauled myself into the boat and began to dry off.  

After a few moments, one of my friends broke the silence, and completely deadpan, chimed, “Well, I guess that was the first time anyone ever attended a baptism and a wake at the same time.” 

That opened the floodgates. Laughter burst from us like water from a broken pipe. We laughed until we cried. We couldn’t stop. It was an effective release, and though laughter may not have been a complete cure for our embarrassment, it certainly was a powerful treatment.  

Thank heaven it still is.

© Nick Walker 2022