When Walt Disney needed an ariel rendering of Disneyland, he called artist Herb Ryman into the studio and said “Herbie, I just want it to look like nothing else in the world. And it should be surrounded by a train.” Most of us would think, Are you kidding me?”, but Ryman delivered, creating the single most important piece of art in the history of the Disney theme parks, and did it in a weekend. Herb Ryman typified the heart of Imagineering.. My favorite Disney story that I read about in “The Imagineering Way” is about the Imagineering of the Soarin ride in EPCOT. The challenge for its creation was a formidable one. Pam Fisher, a Senior Show Writer tells the fascinating story in her piece for the book called “Childish Things”. She writes,“One of the early designs was a series of little hang gliders on a conveyer belt system, but it had all kinds of problems,” explained one of the Imagineers.. Several other concepts also fell by the wayside. It wasn’t until Mark Sumner, a Walt Disney Imagineering show/ride engineer, decided to take the problem home over the weekend that the challenge was resolved. “I think I’m like a lot of Imagineers where I don’t necessarily leave my job at the office,” said Sumner, whose specialty is creating ride systems. One particular weekend, he started sketching some concepts for the Soarin’ ride design and was trying to figure out how to best convey his ideas to his team. “I remembered I had a 40-year-old toy, an erector set that I got when I was a kid,” said Sumner. “So I pulled it out of the attic, and over a couple of hours, I built a working model. When I came back to the office on Monday, I set it on the table, cranked it up and said, ‘Maybe we can do it like this.’ As they say, the rest is history.” That kicked off a tremendous engineering effort, and a considerable amount of research and development followed to achieve the remarkable technological result of what literally started with a child’s toy. Sumner’s concept — small enough to hold in his hands — grew into a ride structure containing one million pounds of steel that is able to lift 37 tons.” The philosophy of the Imagineers is to never slight an idea, no matter how ambitious, but to ask “How can we make this happen?” So far it has been a recipe for great success. Well, here we are in the middle of that time in the church year that puts many congregations into a state of panic. Summer vacations and lower attendance put a strain on church budgets and anxiety rises. It also doesn’t help that we are also in a time of nationwide decline in church membership. But really, What does that mean to us? In the movie Apollo 13 there is a dialog exchange between Gene Krantz and Chris Craft in mission control. Henry Hurt: We’ve got the parachute situation, the heat shield, angle of the trajectory and the typhoon. There’s just so many variables, I’m at a loss — Chris Kraft: I know what the problems are, Henry. This could be the worst disaster NASA’s ever experienced. Gene Kranz: With all due respect, sir, I believe this is gonna be our finest hour. I think Jesus tells us how to make what seems insurmountable into our finest hour in today’s Gospel. The imagineers did not invent the philosophy of anticipating success before even beginning the most rudimentary facets of planning. Consider Jesus’ question. “OK guys where are we gonna get the bread to feed these people?” He’s going to feed them, period… now on to the details. Philip flips out with an assumption of failure and defeatism. Sort of “We might as well turn out the lights, the party’s over. Jesus has lost his mind.” But Andrew, in contrast offers the tiniest, the smallest mustard seed bit of, can we call it FAITH??? it’s so diminutive. “Well, we do have this little kid with JUST 5 barley loaves and 2 fish.” By mentioning its barley he’s even saying it’s not good bread. And I have to ask at this point, What on earth were over 5000 people doing wandering around out in the wilderness in the middle of the day? And who would go out away from security without packing the essentials? Didn’t these people have jobs? After some study I found the answer is “no.” These were people who were driven off of their land by poverty and hunger and oppression by their rulers. They often were not able to pay the demanded tribute and feed themselves at the same time and got desperately into debt and finally lost their farms. Some in fact moved back onto the farms they once owned as indebted workers; many others just became homeless, beggars, prostitutes, thieves, and day laborers. When they heard of Jesus, teaching, healing and feeding in the region or neighborhood they flocked to see him. These were barley eaters. Barley was looked down on as it was hard to get at the edible part and when you did it was course and had a bad taste. The well to do would have had food and white bread at that. So this group is following Jesus hoping to see one of the signs they have heard about. It gets on toward time to eat and Jesus asks a bizarre question, a where question, “Where are we going to buy bread for these people to eat? In my study for this week I found a new question for the Gospel story for today that I had never thought of. How did Andrew find the kid with the bread? Growing up I learned that this kid was like the widow with her mites, giving all that he had, but nowhere does it say that. Did he just show up and realize there was a need and offered Jesus all that he had because he “got” Jesus’ message? Was he sitting there with his food trying to conceal it from prying eyes when Andrew spotted him. If so, how did Andrew convince him to share? Either way the little boy makes a small, mustard seed, positive response and does share and that becomes a cog in Jesus’ plan to feed and teach the disciples, the multitude and us. So far we have two small yeses, but they are yeses nonetheless. What if this kid had been the doomsday prepper type, hoarding his food and arming himself against those in need. But he isn’t. Jesus cultivates these mustard seeds. He makes them grow and bloom to heights that no Imagineer could even imagine. All it took to get the ball rolling was a willingness to see possibilities, no matter how insurmountable you think they are, and the faith and gall to try and to have the audacity to anticipate a glorious success before even really getting started. The Imagineers do this through a philosophy of positive thinking. Christians do it through faith in Christ’s presence and the promise that even with a mustard seed faith we can move mountains. We must look at it in it’s simplicity or with a childlike faith. It’s like Jesus says when he comes to the boat on the water, “Don’t fear, It’s me.” “Don’t fear…… It’s me.” So, if we follow Jesus’ example, we must evolve from faith to service to others, always relying on the presence and power of Christ to fulfill our expectation of success. In many of our congregations a lot of our conversations center around ‘scarcity.’ There is never enough money, never enough youth, never enough people, never enough. This story contributes to that conversation. Do you suppose we also might be overlooking resources which, on first glance, seem as though they would not be enough? In a crowd of 5000 plus, I wonder how many even recognized the miracle that was happening right before their eyes. For all their enjoyment of the simple and plentiful meal before them, they may hardly have noticed where it came from. I imagine this is also often true of me, that I don’t have the viewpoint to recognize the gifts that are right in front of me. And I wonder how I might become more adept at recognizing and more consciously receiving and celebrating those gifts. In closing, consider George Muller, a Christian evangelist and Director of the Ashley Down orphanage in Bristol, England, in the mid 1800’s who cared for 10,024 orphans in his life. He was well known for providing an education to the children under his care, to the point where he was accused of raising the poor above their natural station in life. He had to build 5 large “homes” to house the thousands of children.Through all this, Müller never made requests for financial support, nor did he go into debt, even though the five homes cost over £100,000 to build. Many times, he received unsolicited food donations only hours before they were needed to feed the children, further strengthening his faith in God. For example, on one well-documented occasion, they gave thanks for breakfast when all the children were sitting at the table, even though there was nothing to eat in the house. As they finished praying, the baker knocked on the door with sufficient fresh bread to feed everyone, and the milkman gave them plenty of fresh milk because his cart broke down in front of the orphanage. Think like and imagineer. How can we make this happen? Jesus calls out to us Don’t be afraid, it’s me, and together we will build the kingdom of God.
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