Growing up, Winnie the Pooh was a dear friend of mine. My mother tells me that before my brother was born, Winne the Pooh came over to the house all the time. I even put him in time-out once for having a bad attitude. Granted, this was all through the vibrant imagination of a three-year-old. I watched "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" and other Pooh-related films. I liked Tigger, too, but he was never invited over. I liked to keep him in the films.
When I grew up, I discovered that there was a parody psychological analysis chart for the Winnie the Pooh characters. Among these was Tigger: ADHD. Yes, go ahead and chuckle. You know it's all too accurate. Pooh became more relate-able with time, but for far more simplistic reasons than other characters I had grown up with. Later on, I met someone who has come to remind me a lot of Tigger. And yes, they do, in fact, have ADHD. But, more importantly, this friend and I are very different. He is a self-proclaimed pagan and basically makes things up as he goes. I am...the opposite. Sometimes, he's a little much for me. Sometimes, I offend him. But, at the end of the day, we are definitely friends.
Though I'm an adult, I occasionally watch children's films to put myself to sleep. It's nice to have something calm and familiar playing. Recently, I've been using "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" for this purpose. In the scene during which Tigger is introduced, I found myself relating the entire scene to my relationship with my friend. The symbolism was strange, but worked. Pooh inviting "the new sound in" was the fear I had of inviting my friend into my life as a friend. Being a Tigger related to my friend's spiritual identity. Honey was the thing which Pooh would do crazy things for, or my spiritual identity. Heffalumps and woosels related to a misunderstanding which we'd had. (He told me he'd seen angels before and didn't like them, and I thought that what he'd seen was something pretending to be an angel. It turned out later that such was not the case.)
Click here to watch the scene on YouTube.
After seeing this symbolism in pictures from my childhood, I found myself once again amazed at how creative a God we serve. He reveals things to us through the new and through the familiar. And then, sometimes, He uses a mix of both. I ask Him to do the same for my friend, though it may take years for him to see it.
When I grew up, I discovered that there was a parody psychological analysis chart for the Winnie the Pooh characters. Among these was Tigger: ADHD. Yes, go ahead and chuckle. You know it's all too accurate. Pooh became more relate-able with time, but for far more simplistic reasons than other characters I had grown up with. Later on, I met someone who has come to remind me a lot of Tigger. And yes, they do, in fact, have ADHD. But, more importantly, this friend and I are very different. He is a self-proclaimed pagan and basically makes things up as he goes. I am...the opposite. Sometimes, he's a little much for me. Sometimes, I offend him. But, at the end of the day, we are definitely friends.
Though I'm an adult, I occasionally watch children's films to put myself to sleep. It's nice to have something calm and familiar playing. Recently, I've been using "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" for this purpose. In the scene during which Tigger is introduced, I found myself relating the entire scene to my relationship with my friend. The symbolism was strange, but worked. Pooh inviting "the new sound in" was the fear I had of inviting my friend into my life as a friend. Being a Tigger related to my friend's spiritual identity. Honey was the thing which Pooh would do crazy things for, or my spiritual identity. Heffalumps and woosels related to a misunderstanding which we'd had. (He told me he'd seen angels before and didn't like them, and I thought that what he'd seen was something pretending to be an angel. It turned out later that such was not the case.)
Click here to watch the scene on YouTube.
After seeing this symbolism in pictures from my childhood, I found myself once again amazed at how creative a God we serve. He reveals things to us through the new and through the familiar. And then, sometimes, He uses a mix of both. I ask Him to do the same for my friend, though it may take years for him to see it.
