Pooh and Piglet walked home thoughtfully together in the golden evening and for a long time they were silent.
“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last,” what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”
“What’s for breakfast,” said Pooh.
“What you do you say, Piglet?”
“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.
– From A.A. Milne, The World of Winnie the Pooh (New York: Penguin Books, 1985), 168.
In the 100 Aker Wood, every day is an adventure. Each day could involve the quest for a honey-laden beehive, an “expotition” to the North Pole, hunting for a home for a friend, or scaling a rope to save your friends. Piglet has it right when he wakes up with the question, “I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” And, then his wish is fulfilled: there is always an exciting turn of events – an unexpected adventure – for this Small and Anxious Animal.
Adventure is both a reality and an attitude. Adventure is built into the very nature of reality. Each day is a new day in which you can never, as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus averred, step into the same waters twice. God is faithful, as the author of Lamentations asserts, but God’s mercies are new every morning. Despite the repetitiveness of life and our own habitual behaviors, there is always something new under the sun, such that the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead was quite right to assert that the progress of civilization is an “adventure of ideas.”
Though he doesn’t think he is particularly brave, Piglet begins his day with openness to adventure. He believes that the world is inherently exciting and that he is part of the excitement. There is always a chance you will meet a Woozle or Haffalump, or some other surprising creature on the way.
There is a Chinese blessing, or is it a curse, that says “May you live in interesting times.” One can say that we truly do live in interesting times in Washington DC and in our own lives, and we are called to respond creatively. As Whitehead also noted, the mark of higher beings is to initiate novelty to match the novelty of the environment. Adventures come at us, even on an ordinary day, and our response is to choose our own adventure rather than passively accept things as they are.
Piglet gives us one model of an adventurous spirit. Piglet chooses to embrace the day. He wakes up ready to welcome novelty. Then, gets out in the world. While we can have adventures of ideas in our easy chair, there are times we need to get out into the world where novelty is the norm. In encountering novelty, we create our own adventures, bringing something new into being that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
Piglet’s vision can inspire us. What is the excitement you need to prepare for? It can be something as routine as playing with your grandchildren, engaging in a conversation with a stranger, smiling at Muslim woman wearing a hijab, going on a march to challenge racism, sexism, homophobia, or xenophobia, reaching out to a stranger, or simply opening your senses to the wonder of life. Adventure is everywhere, just waiting for our embrace.
How will you wake up tomorrow? Will you anticipate the “same old, same old?” Or, will you have a sense of excitement as you welcome our “interesting” time?
(For more on the adventures of every day, see “The Gospel According to Winnie the Pooh” –
https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-According-Winnie-Pooh-Intersections/dp/1934542407/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1486500309&sr=8-1&keywords=Bruce+Epperly)
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