Ashes!

December 8th, 2018| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Ashes!

All kinds of celebrations happen at Disney theme parks: engagements, birthdays, weddings, etc., etc.

But these “Happiest Places on Earth” are also venues for “celebrations” of a different kind.

The custodians of said parks in Orlando, Florida (Walt Disney World) and Anaheim, California (Disneyland) report that these famous locations are preferred places for guests to scatter their loved ones’ ashes!

In fact, such disbursements of remains are so popular that custodians have a code for the resulting cleanup: HEPA cleanup (from the High-Efficiency Particulate Air filters used in the process: forcing air through a fine mesh traps those minute ash particles—an ultrafine vacuum cleaner).

Apparently, Disney theme park guests sneak in these ashes in plastic bottles or pill bottles inside purses and backpacks, and then spread the goodies throughout the parks’ landscaping.

Missouri native Shanin Himebrook, confessed that she had laid her father to rest near Disney World’s gates earlier this year to remember and memorialize their frequent summer trips together to this place.

Said Himebrook:

He wasn’t my tired, graveyard-shift Dad suffering through Disney World. He was, ‘Let’s get you the Mouse ears! Let’s get your name stitched in it!’ It’s like, ‘I love this Dad! Can we stay here together forever?’”

Needless to say, such activities by guests are not condoned. Said a Disney spokesperson:

This type of behavior is strictly prohibited and unlawful, and any guest caught in the act will be escorted off property.”

Anaheim Police Department spokesman Sgt. Daron Wyatt confirmed to USA TODAY that officers have answered calls regarding ashes at Disneyland. The Orlando Police Department didn’t respond to the paper’s request for comment.

In any case, HEPA cleanups, custodians say, continue to be carried out at least once a month.

Reported one journal:

This leads to visions of Grandma or Grandpa spending eternity inside a Hoover.”

Nope! Not at all.

As Jesus told the repentant thief on the cross:

“Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”
Luke 23:43

That’s it. For believers in Jesus Christ, it’s either here on earth or in Paradise with Jesus. While the body/remains may lurk around in Disney flowerbeds, in a real sense, the person is gone.

Paul echoed that sentiment:

But I am hard-pressed from both directions,
having the desire to depart and be with Christ.
Philippians 1:23

So we have no fear of death, no fear of annihilation, no fear of extinction into nothingness.

We are of good courage, I say,
and prefer rather to be absent from the body
and to be at home with the Lord.
2 Corinthians 5:8

But the body is integral to God’s grand plans for humanity. There will be a resurrection of the body.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again,
even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. …
For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout,
with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God,
and the dead in Christ will rise first.
Then we who are alive and remain
will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air,
and so we shall always be with the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 4:14, 16–17

No matter where or in what form the body is, it will be raised.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet;
for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable,
and we will be changed.
1 Corinthians 15:52

A new body! One day! Beauty for … ashes!

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