My First Miracle

Our lives get bookmarked by our “firsts.” I remember my first day of school, my first romantic kiss, and my first job interview. I now know there were many miracles in my childhood but the first genuine miracle that I knew was for me, from God with my name on it, happened in late March of 1981 on the UC Santa Barbara campus. I was not yet 21 years old and I was not a believer in the existence of a personal God who cared about the piddling details of human lives. This was not a problem for God.

My problem was so small, so inconsequential to the grand scheme of human achievement, and so trivial that I’m now embarrassed I cared so passionately about it. I wanted to take a Film Studies class on Movie Musicals that was only taught once every four years. I was already in my junior year and this would be my only chance. I had followed protocol and gone with my boy friend and my roommate to sign up for the class. This was in the day when to register for a class you picked up from the instructor a computer punch card created for that class and that class alone. You then took your collected “hand” of computer cards to the registrar’s office and had them filed with an identity card issued to you and it was all fed into the computer so that it would show you were officially registered for that class. If you didn’t file the card, you didn’t get credit for the class. Because the movie musicals class was so popular, if you weren’t taking it for credit, you could not just audit the class. I had been so pleased to accept that class card from the instructor and place it with the rest of my class load. I was on my way to file my cards when I read in the small print at the top of the card that I had been handed the card for the other class the professor taught, Films of Ingmar Bergen, not the card for Movie Musicals.

I did not want to spend a trimester watching black and white movies about death, illness, betrayal and insanity, but I felt like I was on the verge of all those things. I had done everything right, and by sheer inattentiveness on my professor’s part, I was going to be excluded from watching with my friends big splashy Technicolor musicals where people were singing and dancing and things always worked out right in the end. As my boyfriend and I made our way across campus to throw myself at the mercy of the Film Department and beg for another class card, I was filled with rage at the universe and just about to overflow with hot, salty tears.

My boyfriend stopped me in the middle of a major walkway with hundreds of students moving past us and said, “I think we should pray about this. May I pray for you that God work this out?” I’d been dating this guy, in an off-again, on-again fashion for three years. The off-again was mostly due to the fact that he believed God listened to him when he prayed, which my boyfriend did often, out loud, and in public. At this point I was accepting it as one of his “quirks”. Besides, I knew there was no way I was going to get a class card since I had seen the professor give the last one out and turn away a long line of people who wanted a card and were denied. “Fine, go ahead and pray,” I told him.

He took my hand, closed his eyes, and then got that serenely delighted look on his face he would get and addressed the clear blue Santa Barbara sky with its puffy white clouds. I don’t remember the exact words because I was too busy thinking that if there was a God and he cared a rat’s tail about me then I wouldn’t have gotten the ticket to cinematic hell in the first place. But I know that my boyfriend stated, as naturally as if he was explaining to someone standing right beside us, my predicament, and that he asked that I get the class card and be in the class with him and that we needed a miracle for that to happen. Amen.

With only a couple of hours left to file my class cards for the next semester, we showed up at the Film Studies office. There were only two teacher aide types working in the office and I earnestly explained my problem. The young ladies agreed that I had a problem. “I’m really sorry for you,” one gal explained, “but there are an exact amount of cards for that class printed and we can’t make more or change that one you have to a different class.”
“Maybe somebody decided they didn’t want the class and turned a card back in?” my boyfriend suggested.

They laughed. The class was popular enough you could make money on an unwanted class card.
“I’m sorry, there’s really nothing we can do,” said the girl at the counter sincerely.
“Of course,” said the girl at the desk slowly, “there was that envelope that was dropped off.”
“What envelope?” asked her co-worker.
“You know, the envelope that was brought in just a little while ago.”
“Who brought it?”
“I didn’t know him. I couldn’t even tell you what he looked like, ‘cept he was big. It’s that white envelope sitting at the end of the counter. I didn’t look to see what was in it yet.”

The Film Studies secretary walked to the end of the counter, riffled through some mail and came back to us holding a plain, unaddressed business envelope. She broke the seal and gently pulled out a single class card. “It don’t believe it! This is amazing.” She had the other office employee come and verify it and they joyfully traded me a computer card with Movie Musicals typed on its edge for the Bergman Films card I had. Somewhat in shock and awe, I thanked them and my boyfriend and I left and went to where you filed your class list. After hugging and dancing me about while thanking God, my boyfriend just walked along smiling like a man whose team had won. But while I’m going through the motions of the registration process, while I’m walking back to the dining commons, while I’m having dinner, while I’m telling the story to my roommate, and while I’m going about the business of life in the dormitory there was a part of my brain that could not categorize what happened.

Was it coincidence? That’s what I wanted to believe but the odds were so against a card being turned in, and just dropped off in a blank envelope, with no explanation. Those women would have remembered a film student saying, “Hey, I’ve got a hot class card here, what will you give me for it?” Why couldn’t they remember or describe the person who had dropped it off? Why hadn’t they asked questions or looked inside the envelope earlier? And what was the connection between my boyfriend earnestly asking that I miraculously get placed in the class, for no other reason than that I wanted it, and the grand coincidence happening. He had believed if he asked that God was capable of doing something. He didn’t instruct God on what to do; he just asked that it be done, in the tone of voice you’d ask a loving parent, “Fix it, please?”

That’s when a huge rip was made in the veil that covered my thinking about God. It would take days, nearly a couple of weeks, before I stepped through that opening and discovered the reality of faith and grace and the Living God. But this was my “there’s more to heaven and earth than is dreamt of in your philosophy” moment. What if there was a God that answered prayer, not because it mattered to the grand scheme of the cosmos, but because it mattered to those who loved Him, and in answering He showed His love for them? It had taken the courage of conviction for my boyfriend to pray aloud in front of me, with all my negativity and doubt, and involve God in the drama of my selfish life. What if prayer and what we called coincidence were somehow connected? What if this give and take between something we called God and something we called “real life” happened all the time around us and we weren’t paying attention? What if God was trying to show me something and this was the only way of getting my attention? What if when things didn’t happen, it was because no one had bothered to pray?

Disneyland Now

When I had children of my own I lived only three hours away from the Magic Kingdom – a fact that I did not want them aware of as they watched Disney videos and an actual Disney channel. So when they’d ask, “Can we go to Disneyland?” I’d take them to the Disney Store in the mall. The toys, clothing and videos available at a Disney store was enough stimulation for any preschooler and all mine knew about the land of Disney. I never told them it was Disneyland -- I just never told them there was anything else.

Disneyland should not be seen from the viewpoint of a stroller. Regardless of how tall you must be to ride this ride, in my kingdom you have to be at least five years old to be worth the price of admission to Walt’s world. When my daughter turned five we left her one-year-old brother with the best kind of friends and told her we were going on a vacation to a hotel with a pool. This hotel was within walking distance of the famed amusement park and as we went out for a stroll I pointed out the snow-capped mountain and discussed with her how odd it was to see such a thing in Southern California in late May. By the time we had reached the entrance she had figured out where she was and was appropriately thrilled. We were celebrating her birthday and she assumed the parades and fireworks had been arranged just for her. She loved everything about Disneyland – except the costumed characters. Characters in costumes whose human faces showed were fine, but my daughter was too smart to believe mice and ducks and dogs should be parading around at such abnormal sizes. She liked her animated characters in two dimensions, thank you.

When it was my son’s turn for the five-year-old initiation to Disneyland I was so proud of his sister. At nine she was adept at pointing out to her brother, “Hey, look over there. A mountain with snow on it! What’s that doing in the middle of a city in California?” Her brother fell for it hook, line, and sinker. We bought our tickets and entered into Disneyland and I told my son I’d take a picture of him in front of the Mickey Mouse Flower Display. “That way we’ll have a record of your visit to Disneyland.” He posed for the picture then looked at the wall of flowers and sighed, “This is the happiest day of my life. Thank you for bringing me to Disneyland. I always wanted to see this.” As he kept gazing fondly at the flowers, I leaned down and said, “You know, son, there’s more than just flowers at Disneyland.” His eyes got big, “There IS?” The whole family could barely contain themselves. “This is just the entrance. If we go around through that tunnel, there’s more to see.” He was agog, and murmured, “Better than this?” You never met a more appreciative child. The look of absolute awe as he surveyed the wonders of Disneyland should have been in a travel brochure for a Disney resort vacation.

Chip and Dale came strolling up and his sister began, “Now you don’t need to be nervous about the characters, they’re just . . . “ but it was too late. My son flung himself in adoration upon the costumed characters and begged to have his photograph taken with them. He was fearless when it came to spinning things and creepy situations. I have since come to realize that the world as he sees it is rather like Disneyland which may explain why he was completely at home there.

In a world of amusement parks, one of the things that makes Disneyland stand above the rest is how it treats those “less able” with respect. If your size, age, physical or mental capabilities are not up to a statistical norm, Disneyland is still accessible and enjoyable. We got to experience Disneyland from the “wheelchair” view when the Aunties met us there to enjoy it with the children. Because one of the aunties is in an electric wheelchair, we suddenly learned that there are entire boats at It’s a Small World for wheelchairs and special entrances to everything for wheelchairs. If one of your party has special needs, the whole group gets to move up to the special needs entrance, no waiting in those pesky lines. You have automatic front row seating (if you don’t mind having children on your lap and feet) for the parades. But most importantly, you are spoken to and dealt with as a human being of worth by the Disney personnel.

This brings me to what truly makes Disneyland one of the happiest places on earth: the employees. The hiring standards are strict and extraordinary because I have chatted with the lady who sweeps up every speck of trash to the ride attendants to the store operators and I have never been treated rudely or coarsely. On our most recent trip to Disneyland we spoke with Carly, an intern with Disney University, who sincerely testified that Disneyland is the best place to work and that she loves the people who work with her, the guests who come to visit and the vision of Walt Disney. She was talking to us while waiting at a bus stop outside the park after the park had closed. No one was around to make her say what she did, this was someone who truly believes in Disneyland and had traveled from out of state to spend her days there.

I wasn’t sure Disneyland would still appeal to my children now that they have reached the ages of sixteen and twenty. But this is the genius behind the place’s design – whatever age you are there is something that will appeal to you. It was rewarding to see that my children are now able to not only enjoy the Indiana Jones adventure but to equally enjoy the stage shows and the landscaping and the engineering behind keeping so many people content in such a small area. They loved discovering live ducklings on the Jungle cruise growing up next to the animatronic apes. They were moved by Moments with Mr. Lincoln. They respected what Walt was trying to do, basing main street on an idealization of his home town, and they appreciated that there should be a place where a family could just play without the real world cares intruding. They could see how the illusion worked – but they enjoyed it anyway.

Disneyland truly is a small world after all. Family groups from all walks of life mutually undergo the sticker shock treatment of paying for admission and then docilely exhibit peace on earth, good will towards all by standing without complaint in lines, and following directions as they are loaded on and off the various conveyances. You will see the most frightening biker dude covered with tattoos and rippling with muscles, holding a fairy wand and a princess hat while his little girl waves at him from the carousel. You can sit at any restaurant and close your eyes and listen to families chatting in every language and know what they’re saying without knowing their dialect. You can park Grandpa with his walker and Grandma with her oxygen in New Orleans square and they are entranced just to people watch and share an ice cream bar in the shape of Mickey Mouse ears. And as for me, you can just leave me on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride – I keep expecting to find a ride I enjoy better and every time, that’s the one that thoroughly satisfies. I’ve got my Pirate Mickey souvenir tee shirt to prove it.

Disneyland Then

Sunday evenings during my pre-school years there was one thing worth watching on television: Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color. The music would strike up and there would be the dazzling color of the kaleidoscope. Kindly Walt Disney would welcome us to the show and talk about something creative and inspiring and then there would be cartoons and animals and wholesome family movies. There were even rumors of a magical realm, the happiest place on earth, called Disneyland. For a kid growing up in New Jersey it had the same mythic resonance as Camelot or Shangri-la.

One summer we took our Dodge Caravan motorhome out to California to visit the grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins on both sides of the family. I’m sitting up front next to my father who is driving through Los Angeles traffic when he says to me, “Now isn’t that strange. Here it is summer and hot enough for shorts and there’s a mountain covered with snow. See it over there, a snow-capped peak? I wonder why it doesn’t melt. Do you think we should go check it out, Sandy?” I was intrigued and agreed to investigate. I practically came unglued when we drove through an archway that had letters that I could pick out and put together as Disneyland. What I had spied from the freeway was the Matterhorn ride and it was an E-ticket ride!

My memories of that first trip to Disneyland are from the perspective of someone who was at eye level with everyone’s knees. I remember how friendly Dumbo looked and how exciting it was to fly on his ride. The Matterhorn was cold and scary but I was propped up against my burly father and felt perfectly safe. I loved the train (it had dinosaurs!) and the characters, and my little felt Mickey Mouse ears with my name embroidered on the back.

My mother loved “It’s a small World” and bought me a Tinkerbell doll for my collection. She also went nuts over the Tiki Room. I think we sat through that show repeatedly because Mom liked it so much. She came back to New Jersey and completely redecorated our basement to resemble the Tiki room. She covered the bar with fake grass skirts, put up fake parrots in fake palm trees, and arrayed coconut monkeys against the bamboo wall treatments. My brothers would go through it singing, “In the tacky, tacky, tacky, tacky, tacky room . . . “

Since that first trip to Disneyland was in our motorhome, we could get our hand stamped and leave the park and have lunch and naptime in the motorhome parked under some patron saint of Disneyland such as Goofy or Dopey. We stayed overnight in the parking lot that first trip, in the days when that was encouraged. It was an utterly wonderful experience to my big, brown Anime eyes and one of the few things we did as a family that had something that everybody could enjoy.

We moved to California in the summer of 1967 and visited Disneyland on our way to our new home. I was old enough to ride everything, and get the jokes on the Jungle Cruise, and adore Pirates of the Caribbean. I don’t know which trip I saw “The World of Tomorrow” in Tomorrowland but I was confident that if Walt Disney said this was what the future was going to be like, then it would be so. I’m still miffed that there are no flying cars or monorail in my town, now that tomorrow has become today. As I grew, I came to appreciate that Walt was a visionary, a man of drive and genius, but not always the nicest guy you’d want to deal with. Then I learned how his brother Roy was the balm to Walt’s burn, the businessman to the dreamer, the peacemaker to the one who poked until he got what he wanted. I like Walt’s statue with Mickey at Disneyland but even more, I like that Roy has a statue tucked away with Minnie at Disney World.

Once I lived in the same state as Disneyland, I visited it with each new season of life. My parents and I took in Disneyland on a trip during my early teens in which we also saw Knott’s Berry Farm and Universal Studios. My parents were past the spinning tea cups stage and more inclined to sit and people watch in New Orleans Square. My college friends and I met up at Disneyland one summer between semesters. That’s when my boyfriend John learned the bitter truth about my low blood sugar issues when I nearly passed out against the wishing well by the castle. When John and I married in the summer of 1983, our honeymoon consisted of driving from theme park to theme park. We slept overnight in our pickup truck in the Disneyland parking lot in the days when that sort of thing was frowned upon. We came back with friends in the summer of 1989, staying in the cheapest motel possible. One of our friends loved to stand in line for the rides but would take the chicken exit at the last minute. We were trying to get pregnant and I was afraid to go on any of the really jarring rides in case I had conceived and didn’t know it yet. Disneyland was getting ready to undergo some dramatic transformations, as were John and I before our next visit to the Magic Kingdom.