Hunny! 40 Days in the 100 Aker Wood – Day 35 – Monday in Holy Week
To Read:
Piglet thought that they ought to have a Reason for going to see everybody, like Looking for Small or Organizing an Expotition, if Pooh could think of something.
Pooh could.
“We’ll go because it’s Thursday,” he said, “and we’ll go to wish everybody a Very Happy Thursday. Come on, Piglet.”
They got up; and when Piglet had sat down again, because he didn’t know the wind was so strong, and had been helped up by Pooh, they started off. They went to Pooh’s house first, and luckily Pooh was at home just as they got there, so he asked them in, and they had some [honey], and then they went on to Kanga’s house, holding on to each other and shouting, “Isn’t it?” and “What?” and “I can’t hear.”
After visiting Kanga for Lunch, Rabbit – off in a rush again – and stopping at Christopher Robin for ‘Very Nearly Tea’, they meet Eeyore.
“Hallo, Eeyore,” they called out cheerfully.
“Ah” said Eeyore. “Lost your way?”
We just came to see you,” said Piglet. “And to see how your house was. Look, Pooh, it’s still standing!”
“I know,” said Eeyore. “Very odd. Somebody ought to have come down and pushed it over.” We wondered whether the wind would blow it down,” said Pooh.
“Ah, that’s why nobody’s bothered, I suppose. I thought perhaps they’d forgotten.”
“Well, we’re very glad to see you, Eeyore, and now we’re going on to see Owl.”
“That’s right. You’ll like Owl. He flew past a day or two ago and noticed me. He didn’t actually say anything, mind you, but he knew it was me. Very friendly of him, I thought. Encouraging.” Pooh and Piglet shuffled about a little and said, “Well, good-bye, Eeyore,” as lingeringly as they could, but they had a long way to go, and wanted to be getting on.
“Good-bye,” said Eeyore. “Mind you don’t get blown away, little Piglet. You’d be missed. People would say, ‘Where’s little Piglet been blown to?’ – really wanting to know. Well, good-bye. And thank you for happening to pass me.”
“Good-bye,” said Pooh and Piglet for the last time, and they pushed on to Owl’s house.
The wind was against them now, and Piglet’s ears streamed behind him like banners as he fought his way along, and it seemed hours before he got them into the shelter of the Hundred Acre Wood and they stood up straight again, to listen, a little nervously, to the roaring of the gale among the tree-tops.
“Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?”
“Supposing it didn’t,” said Pooh after careful thought.
Piglet was comforted by this, and in a little while they were knocking and ringing very cheerfully at Owl’s door.
“Hallo, Owl,” said Pooh. “I hope we’re not too late for — I mean, how are you, Owl? Piglet and I just came to see how you were because its Thursday.”
“Sit down, Pooh, sit down, Piglet,” said Owl kindly. “Make yourselves comfortable.”
They thanked him, and made themselves a comfortable as they could.
(The House at Pooh Corner – In Which Piglet Does a Very Grand Thing)
From the Scriptures:
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
(Hebrews 10v23-25)
To Reflect:
“Hallo, Eeyore,” they called out cheerfully.
“Ah” said Eeyore. “Lost your way?”
We just came to see you,” said Piglet.
I returned to England to work in the Diocese where I was confirmed as a teenager on 27 December 2000. My wonderful family, all born and bred in South Africa, gave up their life of Sun, Sea, and Braaivleis for dark nights and some typical East Suffolk winter weather, so that I could continue to follow the call to serve the people of God. Having moved from high summer and a last few days of intense sunbathing we arrived at Heathrow in the middle of a flurry of snow. I did get one or two ‘looks’ from our children. I never will be worthy of the love and encouragement they give to a sometimes very wayward Daddy Dotchin.
To make things up to them on New Year’s Day I drove the boys over to the coast at Southwold so that they could experience the full fierce beauty that is the North Sea in mid-winter. Standing on the jetty next to the Lifeboat station with the wind full in our faces and being splashed by the spray from the freezing waves I was exultant. Our boys on the other hand, who had always suspected their dad was a little bit weird, now knew for a fact that he was downright dippy! Different and dippy but memorable. Looking back nearly 25 years later we can all say that that was the moment we came home.
Fierce weather has a way of shaking the fidgets out of my system. Not just the cobwebs of life but the things that I’ve been clinging on to for no good reason other than they are mine and nobody else’s; and such things always weigh me down instead of setting me free. It is when I am about in fierce weather, preferably striding along the Heugh on Lindisfarne or walking along the edge of the Clyde estuary on the Isle of Bute, that I finally allow our Beloved to come closer to me and obey the gentle urgings to, ‘Let Go and let God’.
Fierce weather can be good weather because it can be healing for body and soul. It is not for nothing that the regularly South-Easterly wind in Cape Town is called the Cape Doctor.
If we can add a conversation with a dear friend to our wanderings we are doubly blessed. My diary, in common with those of many, is overfull of meetings. Meetings at which I must make a presentation, keep the Minutes, report on its proceedings, devise an action plan flowing from it and so on and so on. These are not ‘meetings’ these are events where work is furthered and goals achieved. A true meeting is between equals. A true meeting has no minutes kept or report made. A true meeting has no outcome (barring dipping into the occasional jar of hunny) other than people coming together on level ground and saying with our Beloved’s closest disciples, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here.’ I cherish the times when this is the kind of meeting I can have with a friend, a colleague, or a fellow worshipper. Meetings which are rich in meaning and deep in godliness yet are of no consequence because no one is taking notes, no one is making a report, simply two hearts meeting together and sharing the wonder of the love our Beloved has showered upon us. Little wonder that the writer of the book Hebrews cautions us to not ‘neglect to meet together’ and warns of the consequences of drifting from each other’s fellowship.
From now on, in honour of Pooh and Piglet, I will name such meetings ‘Thursday meetings. I refuse to search for a reason to meet other than to desire the deep fellowship found when we walk together through fierce weather on the journey home. For vicars such as I Holy Week is busy with two, three or even four services on every day of the week ahead. However I always look forward to it as I know that during this time I will meet dear, dear friends who are also walking through fierce weather and together we hold hands and walk through the darkness of Calvary towards the dawn of the Resurrection.
To Pray:
You, O eternal trinity,
are a deep sea into which,
the more I enter, the more I find,
and the more I find, the more I seek.
O abyss,
O eternal Godhead,
O sea profound,
what more could you give me than yourself?
(Catherine of Sienna)
To Do:
1) Visit (or be in contact with) a member of your fellowship who does not expect to be visited.
2) If this week there is some ‘fierce weather’ where you live go outside and feel it. Then go home and give thanks to our Beloved that you have shelter. After this give away something you have been holding on to that has been doing you and those near to you no good.
Please Note: These reflections are also published on my blog: suffolkvicarhomes.com on Twitter as @SuffolkVicar, and on my public Facebook page Rev Andrew Dotchin
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Acknowledgements:
Text from ‘Winnie the Pooh’ and ‘The House at Pooh Corner’ by A.A. Milne copyright © The Trustees of the Pooh Properties.
Line illustrations copyright © The Estate of E.H. Shepard.
Colouring of the illustrations copyright © 1970 and 1973 The Estate of E.H. Shepard and HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Prayers are from ‘The Little Book of Prayers’ edited by David Schiller copyright © David Schiller 1996: Workman Publications.
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
These Reflections, ‘Hunny! 40 Days in the 100 Aker Wood’ are copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2024
Suffolk Vicar 