Winnie the Pooh and the Very Happy Day

Linda and I took two of our granddaughters to the movies last weekend to see Christopher Robin.  The film imagines what might have happened to Christopher Robin after he grew up and left Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and the Hundred Acres Woods far behind.  It was a rather charming picture--somewhat predictable, but none-the-less refreshing in this day and age of movies based on comic books.

The film reminded me of a book I've long owned and enjoyed called The Tao of Pooh.  In it author Benjamin Hoff illustrates many of the basic tenets and teachings of Taoism using quotations from A. A. Milne's classic stories.

It is appropriate.  In the Tao Te Ching, the basic Taoist text, one reads:  "The wise are not learned, the learned are not wise."  Winnie-the-Pooh, self-described as a "bear of very little brain" is a case in point.  While far from learned, he is most certainly wise.  For Pooh, enjoying Tuesday is far more important than knowing how to spell it!   And as for Thursday?  When queried by Piglet as to why they should go off to visit people, Pooh responds. " . . . [B]ecause it's Thursday and we'll go wish everybody a Very Happy Thursday."

As I write this it is Monday.  Which classically is understood to be the toughest day of the week.  But perhaps we think that way because it isn't Friday, or Saturday, or Sunday.  It is the first day of the work week for most folks.  But maybe instead of being so negative about it, we should be grateful we have work at all!

So let me wish you a Very Happy Monday.  And if you read this on Tuesday, which I do know how to spell, a Very Happy Tuesday.  And if you read it . . . . well you get the point.  If there is a point.