YEA for Disneyland!
December 9th, 2009
Through a gracious invitation I attended the Candlelight Ceremony at Disneyland…yes, the home of Mickey and Minnie! It was a grand event in the style and standard of excellence that you would expect from a Disney production…right down to the classy ushers. The stage was well laid out and ready for the program…the lights were tested…mics in place…again, just as you would expect from Disneyland. Jon Voight came to the lectern to serve as narrator. His first words were something to the affect that secular society had turned Christmas into something it wasn’t. Christmas is about Christ and His birth. He proceeded throughout the program to read directly from the Gospel of Luke…the Christmas story. It was intermixed with Christmas carols that were familiar to all. The words “God, Jesus,” and “Christ” were mentioned liberally during the evening…perhaps more than some churches will do in their attempt to make the message of the season palatable to all! In all of our “cultural sensitivity,” have we turned Christmas into something other than Christmas…and Disneyland has to do the world a favor by keeping that message pure and simple? Maybe so…
So Jubal, you would have approved of the program. Those herald trumpet players up on top of the Disneyland train station were blowing in the cold wind, but nailed every note! You would have been impressed!
They ended the program with the reading of the James Allen Francis poem, One Solitary Life. If you haven’t seen this, or it has been a long time, here is One Solitary Life.
One Solitary Life
He was born in an obscure village,
The child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in still another village,
Where he worked in a carpenter shop
Until he was thirty.
Then for three years
He was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never had a family or owned a house.
He didn’t go to college.
He never visited a big city.
He never traveled two hundred miles
From the place where he was born.
He did none of the things
One usually associates with greatness.
He had no credentials but himself.
He was only thirty-three
When the tide of public opinion turned against him.
His friends ran away.
He was turned over to his enemies.
And went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross
Between two thieves.
While he was dying,
His executioners gambled for his clothing,
The only property he had on Earth.
When he was dead,
He was laid in a borrowed grave
Through the pity of a friend.
Twenty centuries have come and gone,
And today he is the central figure
Of the human race,
And the leader of mankind’s progress.
All the armies that ever marched,
All the navies that ever sailed,
All the parliament that ever sat,
All the kings that ever reigned,
Put together have not affected
The life of man on Earth
As much as that
ONE SOLITARY LIFE!

