Waiting at Six Flags

Joy and Prayer at the Capitalist Trough

Last weekend, I spent about nine hours in a Six Flags theme park. It left me enthralled and exhausted: enthralled by children’s joy, and exhausted by the trough of capitalism that Six Flags embodies.

Such parks are troughs of capitalism. Every Dippin’ Dots retail window, three-point basketball challenge, or fried food stand seems designed with one purpose: to squeeze profit. From $20 locker rentals for the water park, to the “special deal” on endless Coca-Cola refills, the theme park thrives on the promise of “more”—more fun, more adventure, more sugar. Kids and adults alike wait for multiple hours to ride a three-minute, death and gravity defying, comic-book branded roller coaster such as the “Riddler’s Revenge” or “Superman.” Surrounded by thousands of people spending money in pursuit of thrills, and a pop-music soundtrack pulsing from speakers everywhere, it’s almost as if the quest for adventure in the theme park corresponds to a collective lack of real adventure in daily life. “What about the adventure of loving our neighbors as ourselves, and loving even our enemies?” I want to ask. What about the quest for inner wholeness? Such heroic journeys do not produce roller coaster airtime plummet screams, but they are what shape a life.

My caveats sufficiently aired, I can also joyfully state that I am a parent of kids who love theme parks. Witnessing their buoyant hype after conquering each coaster fear redeems the experience for me. They are making memories as they eagerly agree on plans for which long lines to brave. They even strategize about the optimum timing to begin waiting to ride the four-hundred foot “Sky Screamer” in order to view the sunset over the park. Their joy is my joy, too, because I’m there for them. I rode a token “easy” wooden roller coaster with the boys called “Thunderbolt”—no upside down loops or plummeting heights—but my 45-year old body really can’t stomach such engineered speed and thrill anymore. The joy of supporting them now far outpaces the thrill I once felt riding myself.

Photo by Matt Bowden on Unsplash

Chaperoning boys at Six Flags reminds me of attending the Sandusky, Ohio roller coaster park Cedar Point with a childhood best friend when I was roughly the same age. I remember the ecstatic feeling of facing my fears on the “Magnum”—then the world’s largest roller coaster. Even until recently, I prided myself on withstanding long lines and being a dad who rode the “Superman.” But after one such ride on one summer day, I became nauseous for the entire day, hardly able to walk. I tried riding the calming swan boat rides with one child that day—and even the swan boats were too intense for me!

So, I’ve given up roller coasters, and now my role is to hold bags, fill water bottles, offer sunscreen reminders, sit on a bench at the coaster exit alongside dozens of other parents, endure the heat, screams, and mechanical noises. My theme park adventure has become one of waiting.

For some reason, I don’t mind it at all and even savor it. Bench seats in theme park waiting areas are hard to come by, so when one opens up, I plant myself there and stay. In the hour, or even longer, that it takes for boys to stand in line for a ride, I catch up with an old friend on the phone and begin diving into a series of articles on colonialism and Caribbean contextual theology—the Caribbean islands are sites of complex clashes between colonial power, religion, and various forms of resistance.

I set my Insight Meditation timer to meditate for 20 minutes. It’s difficult, with the screams, the rapid click-clacking of the coasters, and the ongoing inevitable meltdowns of children all around. But it strangely works. Sitting on the theme park bench in hot sun is a station of prayer for me—an uncomfortable and challenging one, to be sure, but a station all the same. When the boys finally exit the ride, breathless and yet bouncing with excitement, my waiting is fulfilled. That’s why I wait, for joy, aliveness, and friendship to take place. There’s a Thomas Merton quote that I love, where he says, “I do not need to lock myself into solitude and lose all contact with the rest of the world; rather, this poor world has a place in my solitude.” In this context, I take it to mean that the capitalist chaos of Six Flags has a place in my heart, too, because God and joy are abundant, even there.

While theme parks are capitalist money-collection machines, they also function as places of joy and togetherness. My task of waiting becomes a contemplative practice. The God of liberation in the Bible calls us to lives of real adventure—the joy and excitement of participating in a movement of love and justice in the world. And yet sometimes that adventure path leads through surprising places, like a Six Flags walkway to a roller coaster.

The boys run up to me, eager to announce their next ride plan, and I’m all in.