California Road Trip--Life Lessons Along the Way pt 6 Disneyland: THE Happiest Place

Disneyland had its grand opening 67 years ago this summer—July 17, 1955. Disneyland made a utopian statement. As suburban developments were being created during the postwar era, there was a concern that the idea of small-town America would be lost. Disneyland sought to reassure a new generation that it could still exist.

Walt Disney intended Disneyland to be, literally, the “happiest place on earth.” The fundamental purpose was to promote human happiness. It was family oriented and child centered.

The concept for the theme park, Walt Disney stated, came from his time spent on Saturdays when he would take his daughters to a merry-go-round in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. As they rode, he thought and dreamed. Disney traveled extensively, visited many places, and began to imagine a more complete theme park that would be shaped by themes and people as characters. His dream became a reality, and it would forever change not just the land and development of Orange County and Southern California, but (in a philosophical way) ideas about life as well.

Disneyland was purposefully divided into separate theme areas (I’m sure we all have our favorites). At the entrance to Disneyland is Main Street USA. Main Street is patterned after a typical Midwest town of the early 20^th century. It is the first area guests see when they enter the park and it is how guests reach Central Plaza. It represents carefree times, and happy memories of the past. There’s a train station, town square, movie theater, city hall, fire station, shops and stores. The Central Plaza is a portal to most of the themed lands.

Frontierland recreates the setting of pioneer days along the American Frontier. Adventureland was designed to recreate the feel of an exotic tropical place in far-off regions of the world—to remote jungles of Asia and Africa. Fantasyland is all about imagination. Tomorrowland looks forward to the future. It was faith in the future, centered in Tomorrowland, that projected Frontierland and Main Street USA forward into an unfolding history of technology, prosperity, and social order.

Here’s the deal—Disneyland is a happy place. For me, personally, all of my memories of times there are good ones. Back in the day, my wife Amy worked at Coke Terrace in Tomorrowland, and then at Pendleton Woolen Mills in Frontierland. In September of 1989, in New Orleans Square, I proposed to Amy on the balcony of the Disney Gallery during the fireworks show. She said “Yes!” To celebrate, we then went on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. I love the times with the boys when they were young and we had annual passes. We had family Christmas pictures that were taken there. The rides and places are all filled with meaning and memories.

Disneyland can, in some way represents what we all want, “if only…” But the things of this world are there to point us beyond. Beyond Tomorrowland. There is a problem however. If there is no beyond Tomorrowland, and we are left with just the good feelings of Frontierland, and whatever we can do in Adventureland with some Fantasyland thrown in, what do we have? We can take ten trips through “It’s a Small World” and get that song stuck in our head, but will that solve what we witness in the injustices found in our world? 

The Disney experience is just an act. But we can begin to think it’s real, and even hope that it’s real. The summer after my sixth-grade year in school, my friend Steve was going to Disneyland with his family (he was the first person I knew personally that went there). When my friend Steve returned, he told me all about how great it was, but then he said, “Everything there runs on a track.” That stuck with me. We can order everything, and plan everything. Through urban planning we can seek to create a type of utopia. And then we begin to desire, and try to orchestrate things so everything we do in life has to have an experience attached to it. We gauge and measure what we do with how it made us feel, and what the experience was like. One person labeled it as the “Disnification” of life.

One think I notice as I wonder down Main Street is, there is no church or even a church facade there. Here’s my question: What Main Street USA doesn’t have a church building on Main Street? (I know Disney probably did not do that intentionally. It’s not that Disneyland needs a church, but, I see a message in that for our “Main Streets.” If we are left with no church and no Jesus, then it is just up to what we can do and accomplish while here.

In the book of Revelation we are given a description of THE Happiest Place. It’s the new heaven and new earth. It’s back to the Garden (“Eden 2.0”), perfect and restored in a new way. It’s described by what’s not there—the stuff that makes this world a not-so-happy place. Jesus Christ, not Walt Disney, has a Kingdom that has no comparison. It’s all laid out. It was planned and designed for all of us. The admission price was already paid in advance for us, at a great sacrifice. There are themes that we can experience. There are stories of the frontier and the pioneers that blazed the trail and handed down the message with courage, bravery and faith. There is adventure in things to do and places to go. It’s more than just fantasy, but a vision and dream of what will be. We can look, not just to tomorrow, but beyond tomorrow.

There is a solution to what we cannot fix—the broken stuff we see and experience in this world that makes it not always happy. There is a freedom that takes us beyond rails and tracks. We do need Jesus Christ on Main Street. We need the Church on Main Street. It directs us home.

Revelation 7:9, says, “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe and people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.” It’s in that context we can sing “It’s a small world.” We are told in Revelation 21, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,” and, “I am making everything new.” We, as Christians are citizens of THE happiest place.

Disneyland has ambassadors. We are ambassadors of the Kingdom of God, and we have been chosen and appointed. It’s Who, and What we represent. We have been given the ministry of reconciliation. We are ambassadors of the peace that comes through Christ. May Jesus Christ, the ruler of the Kingdom we represent, love through us this week, and may we bring a real kind of happiness to the world.

It’s great traveling with you. Blessings.