Thursday, January 20, 2005

Reflections on A. A. Milne

The guy doing the talk at this morning's Prams and Pushchairs session tried to tie in Winnie the Pooh with the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and our ecumenical links here. He did a good job, imo, in comparing the local independent Anglican fellowship with Tigger (bags of energy and enthusiasm) and I could see why he compared the Baptists with Winnie the Pooh himself, in that they are pivotal to all our joint enterprises here, (and host the ecumenical coffee shop in their premsises,-"time for a little something"). I could even, at a pinch, see why the large and active RC church might be rabbit (and his friends and relations). But he rather charitably decidedthat we at the parish church were Wol, venerable and wise...whereas I'm rather afraid we 're really more Eeyore, looking sadly down at the ground beneath our hooves and lamenting
"I don't seem to have felt very how for a long time".
Fortunately the children were too young and the mothers too polite to comment ;-)

4 comments:

Tony said...

Actually Eeyore always cheers me up, just like the good old C of E. And he's a great proponent of the if it ain't broke, why fix it? approach, as in: "Then why did you bend a perfectly good one?"

Andii said...

A number of years ago in Third Way there was a series of articles under the title 'Ongoing Theology of Winnie the Pooh' [I think]. In it Anglicans were Winnie the Pooh, Methodists Piglet, CR was JC, Kanga was the RC Church with Roo being RC priest, Wol was a dour Presbyterian, Rabbit was the baptists [with loads of friends and relations] and Tigger was the pentecostal church ... it all makes sense which is why I've remembered it so well!

Rob said...

reminds me of a similar idea by adrian plass likening denominations to football teams at the world cup. the best concept was that the 'charismatic' team would win more matches if they opened their eyes and stopped waving their hands in the air... Rob (www.robwaller.co.uk)

Kristofer said...

A funny way of describing the differences. Using comparisons can give new insights (but also give false impressions)

Kristofer
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