Friendship

We had an excellent sermon on the theology of friendship at our UU church yesterday. The pastor talked about abandonment (dropping one's guard,) accompaniment (being there for friends,) and awakening (growth through friendly advice) as aspects of friendship. The children's story was from A. A. Milne's collection and was about friendship between Christopher Robin, Piglet, and Pooh. Our pastor read the following poem by Polish poet and 1980 Nobel literature laureate,  Czeslaw Milosz:

Christopher Robin

by Czeslaw Milosz

I must think suddenly of matters too difficult for a bear of little brain. I have never asked myself what lies beyond the place where we live, I and Rabbit, Piglet and Eeyore, with our friend Christopher Robin. That is, we continued to live here, and nothing changed, and I just ate my little something. Only Christopher Robin left for a moment.

Owl says that immediately beyond our garden Time begins, and that it is an awfully deep well. If you fall in it, you go down and down, very quickly, and no one knows what happens to you next. I was a bit worried about Christopher Robin falling in, but he came back and then I asked him about the well. “Old bear,” he answered. “I was in it and I was falling and I wore trousers down to the ground, I had a grey beard, and then I died. It was probably just a dream, it was quite unreal. The only real thing was you, old bear, and our shared fun. Now I won’t go anywhere, even if I’m called in for an afternoon snack.”