“DISNEY WORLD IS THE GREATEST PLACE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!”
Christian told this to just about every person he met. He had never been there, but he had heard. He had seen all the movies, read all the books…
“I’m going there some day. It’s going to be amazing. It’s perfect. It’s PARADISE. Everyone is happy there… Everything is clean. Someday (by and by) I’m going to Orlando, and when I get there, I’m DEFINITELY getting into Disney World. And once I’m there, I’m never leaving. I’m staying there. FOREVER.”
He was admittedly a “superfan.” Christian grew up with those movies. He grew up with parents that promised him he would see the streets of Disney World someday… If he just believed. It was just like Walt Disney himself once said: “When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably.” He even had that on a poster in his room…
Editor’s note: Walt Disney might not have said this. Like Abraham Lincoln once said: “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.”
And now that he was older, he raised his kids to believe the same thing. Someday–if they BELIEVED enough–they would get to go to Disney World. Be good… Eat your vegetables… Mickey is watching… The whole deal. He had Disney stickers on his SUV. He had a bunch of Disney T-shirts. Once a week, he would gather with a bunch of other Disney fans, and they would sing songs like “Can You Feel The Love Tonight,” and “A Whole New World,” and “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” If you asked, he’d tell you that THIS time–the time BEFORE Disney World–wasn’t nearly as important as THAT time–sometime in the future–when he would actually get to GO to Disney World. Disney World… THAT’S what is REALLY important. Because Disney World is forever. It’s bliss. It’s paradise. To hear Christian say it, he couldn’t WAIT to go to Disney World.
Which is what made it so weird when he bought that samurai sword.
The reason you keep your samurai sword polished is so that you can see if anyone behind you is sneaking up and trying to give you tickets to Orlando…
I mean, sure… Samurai swords where perfectly legal to carry where Christian lived. And you could buy one just about anywhere. Some people had swords for fun–they didn’t keep them very sharp. Some people used them to slice cucumbers and carrots and cabbage. But when Christian purchased that samurai sword, and kept it sharp, and carried it with him, he did it for a very specific reason: To keep people from sending him to Disney World. Because if you tried to give him tickets and force him on a plane to Orlando, shove him through an Epcot Center turnstile, or send him or any member of his family to Disney World, Christian was more than willing to slice your ass in half with his samurai sword.
It just seems so strange… Why in the world would someone be willing to KILL a person to prevent that person from sending him to paradise? Something didn’t make sense. I mean, samurai swords are dangerous. People can get hurt by mistake. Sometimes kids get their hands on those swords, and that is NEVER good. Even little kids. For each week of the past two years, there has been one person sliced or killed BY A TODDLER wielding a sword, for goodness sake. And if we’re being honest, there is not really that much of a threat of people walking up to you and trying to give you tickets to Disney World. It is incredibly rare. So to be willing to endure all of the other dangers and downsides that come with carrying around samurai swords, just on the off-chance that he might meet someone who tries to give him Disney tickets, one could probably assume that Christian either a) Wasn’t as certain as he professed to be about how awesome Disney World was, or b) Wasn’t exactly “certain” that he was going to get in after he made it to Orlando.
No worries. You get used to living with cognitive dissonance…
Apparently, Christian was so afraid of being sent to Disney World that he was willing to kill people to keep from going there. Which seems at least a little crazy, but Hakuna Matata–at least it wasn’t TOTAL hypocrisy. At least Walt Disney didn’t command his followers to love their enemies. You know… like Jesus.
Hi. Thanks for reading something I wrote. I hope it made you think. Just as a post script, I’d like to mention that I don’t know what I believe about what happens when we die. As far as I’m concerned, it’s all speculation. Some people claim to be really certain about it… I don’t know about heaven, but I’ve come to the conclusion that if there is actually a hellish place where the majority of people go to get tortured for all eternity, then the only thing we can be CERTAIN about is that God is an unimaginable monster. If that’s what “Love” or even “Justice” looks like to the higher power in the universe, then we are all incredibly screwed. That being said, there are a lot of people who profess to be very certain that Heaven and Hell (as an eternal consequence) are both very real. Many of these people call themselves “Christians,” and many of these people carry guns. And here is something I will never, ever understand: People, who call themselves followers of a man who commanded his us to love our enemies, who are willing to send someone else to Hell to keep that person from sending them to Heaven. It doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. If you are one of these people, you should ask yourself how you make sense of this. And then let me know… Or you could read one of my favorites: Guns For Christians Are Like Condoms For Nuns
Lastly, I want to say thank you to one of my newer Patrons: Dale Peacock. Thank you so much. It makes me so proud that people I have never met care enough about this blog to help support it. If you’d like to be as completely kick ass as Dale, you can BE A PATRON. If you liked this story, you can LEAVE A TIP ON PAYPAL. Or you can just share this post or follow me on Facebook or Twitter.
