Book Review: Winnie the Pooh

Like most people who grew up in the 70′s and 80′s, my first real knowledge of Winnie-the-Pooh was from Disney.  My only real experience with Pooh, and all his wonderful friends, was either seeing them in cartoon form or meeting them at Walt Disney World.    But i always had a desire to meet them in their natural habitat…in the pages of  A. A. Milne’s classic book named after his iconic character, Winnie, called Pooh.

Original Winnie the Pooh stuffed toys. Clockwise from bottom left: Tigger, Kanga, Edward Bear (aka Winnie-the-Pooh), Eeyore, and Piglet.

Original Winnie the Pooh stuffed toys. Clockwise from bottom left: Tigger, Kanga, Edward Bear (aka Winnie-the-Pooh), Eeyore, and Piglet.

Winnie is a bear that belongs to Christopher Robin, named after Milne’s son, Christopher Robin Milne. You also meet Poohs friends Piglet, Owl, Eeeyore, Kanga, and Roo.  You probably know these characters, but unless you’ve read the books, you have no idea of who they really are.

You read all of Pooh’s exploits and adventures throughout the 1000 Acre wood through the stories told to a son by his father.  The stories are simple, lovely, and enduring.  The animal friends tend to be a little mischievous and sometimes very simple in thought, but they are all good animals who only wish to enjoy being together.

And like most great literature, there are lessons to be learned on many levels.  I will read these stories over again, and when I have children, I will introduce them to that simple Old Bear, Winnie-the-Pooh.  Won’t you pick up a copy of the book and join me an adventure?  Make sure you bring some honey!

Slipping the Surly Bonds of Earth

It was a very cold day in Atlanta, GA.

I was in High School.  16.

It was a snow day and I was over at my friend Richi’s house.

Rich, myslef, and John, Richi’s brother, were all watching the Shuttle launch together, laughing, joking, picking on the younger brother…and then everything changed.

I saw the puff of a what we would later find out was the initial explosion and stopped.  Even the immature 16 year-old i was knew in my core that something was terribly wrong with what I was watching.  Richi knew too.  We stopped.  Stopped laughing, stopped playing, just….stopped.

And then the reports started to come in.  Explosion… no survivors… worst disaster in US Space history…

That evening we joined the nation sitting in front of our television sets as we watched then President Ronald Reagan try to help us all come to terms with losing 7 of our best and brightest.

I can remember the John Gillespie Magee Jr. poem he recited…

‘They have “slipped the surly bonds of Earth” to “touch the face of God.”

– Ronald Reagan

And I can remember that moment…even today, 25 years later.  I still cry every time I think about it.  It’s the truest meaning of galvanized into my brain, and my heart.  I still ache for those left behind…

And still we strive to reach beyond our human limits, so explore and search outside of our comfort zones.  The testimony of our human ingenuity and skill.

But that day, so long ago, a memory… a tearful pang of sorrow for those 7 Challenger Astronauts…

Godspeed.

Are We Building a Tower?

I was reading in Genesis 11:1-9, the story of the Tower of Babel.  If you are unfamiliar with the story, immediately after Noah and his family are released from the Ark, God tells them to “be fruitful and multiply.”  And as the world becomes more and more populated the people decide to build for themselves a tower to make a name for themselves.  And God say this and aid to himself, “they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”  After realizing this, God confused their languages and spread them all over the earth. So they never finished building the tower and God called the place Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth.

And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

And I asked myself: What did God see in those people that he decided to confuse their language and spread them all over the earth?

Did God know that they would play God ourselves with technology and begin to clone human beings in their own image?  Or did He see that they would begin to choose exactly what their children would look like, even before they were born?

Perhaps God foresaw that they would build machines that would allow them gaze into the outer reaches of the universe and actually see Heaven and no longer wonder about its existence, therefore taking away the need for faith?

What did God see that people setting their minds to that they would accomplish, so much so that even God said that it would be IMPOSSIBLE for them to not succeed?

(via www.scienceblogs.com)

Maybe God only postponed the inevitable and we are that future people, surpassing language and distance through the internet and advanced learning of language and technology?  It does make you wonder…

What do you think that God saw that people setting their minds to?

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