Hunny! 40 Days in the 100 Aker Wood – Day 20 – Thursday after 3rd Sunday of Lent

To Read:

….and in the other direction went Pooh, with his jar of honey.

It was a warm day, and he had a long way to go. He hadn’t gone more than half-way when a sort of funny feeling began to creep all over him.  It began at the tip of his nose and trickled all through him and out at the soles of his feet. It was just as if somebody inside him were saying,

“Now then, Pooh, time for a little something.”

“Dear, dear,” said Pooh, “I didn’t know it was as late as that.”  So he sat down and took the top off his jar of honey.  “Lucky I brought this with me,” he thought.  “Many a bear going out on a warm day like this would never have thought of bringing a little something with him.”  And he began to eat.

“Now let me see,” he thought, as he took his last lick of the inside of the jar, “where was ! going?  Ah, yes, Eeyore.”  He got up slowly.  And then, suddenly, he remembered.  He had eaten Eeyore’s birthday present!  “Bother!” said Pooh. “What shall I do? I must give him something.”  For a little while he couldn’t think of anything.  Then he thought:  “Well, it’s a very nice pot, even if there’s no honey in it, and if I washed it clean, and got somebody to write ‘A Happy Birthday’ on it, Eeyore could keep things in it, which might be Useful.”  So, as he was just passing the Hundred Acre Wood, he went inside to call on Owl, who lived there.

HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA

BTHUTHDY.

(Winnie the Pooh – In which Eeyore has a birthday)

(Deuteronomy 15v10-11)

The first time I received a ‘Winnie the Pooh Birthday Present’ was from my youngest brother Edward.  It was in the early 1970s when, for children of his age, the highlight of the TV viewing week was Blue Peter followed by The Magic Roundabout.  One of the ‘makes’ on Blue Peter was to take the cardboard centre from a roll of toilet paper, cover it with cotton wool and add the tail and a removable face of Dougal the Dog from the Magic Roundabout. The cotton covered cardboard tube was then filled with sweeties to make a present with a surprise inside it.

When Edward, then aged seven, gave me his handmade present he quite nonchalantly said, ‘It’s supposed to be full of sweets, but I ate the sweets…’  His present, even 50 years later, remains the most memorable birthday gift I have ever received and I cherished that cotton covered empty toilet roll for years.

Sometimes, perhaps flippantly, when something has not turned out quite as expected a wag will say. ‘Well. it’s the thought that counts.’  Never a truer word has been said.  It is all about the thought that we put into our daily tasks of service, even though they may seem ever so mundane, that counts.  Presents are not made of full jars of honey or toilet roll innards bereft of sweeties, but instead of hearts poured out in love to another despite our frailties.  Would that we had a few more people such as my much loved and much missed brother who decide to give even though they know their gift is not as shiny or bright or full of sweeties as they had hoped?

This parable from an unknown source perhaps says things better than any words of mine…

A Box Full of Kisses

The story goes back some time ago. A man punished his 3-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper.  Money was tight and he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree.  Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said, ‘This is for you. Daddy.’  The man was embarrassed by his earlier over reaction, but his anger flared again when he found out the box was empty.

He yelled at her, ‘Don’t you know, when you give someone a present, there is supposed to be something inside?’  The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and cried, ‘Oh, Daddy, it’s not empty at all.  I blew kisses into the box. They’re all for you, Daddy.’

The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl and he begged for her forgiveness.  The man kept that gold box by his bed for years and whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.

To Pray: 

‘Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,
‘Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be;
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d;
to turn, turn, will be our delight.
Till by turning, turning we come round right.

(Shaker Hymn)