Scoot & Hambone Talk About Stuff
Talkin' bout Peasants
Hambone and I sometimes have conversations that feel fruitful enough to share. This exchange happened Saturday Morning, after Hambone posted a note quoting the famous book, Winnie the Pooh.
Scoot: Twice nineteen?
Hambone: 19 x 2 in British lol.
Scoot: -scoffs- yeah I know but what does that number signify? Temperature?
Hambone: Just times tables! Nothing specific.
Scoot: Ohhh. He’s learning, hence the river and all knowledge and sharing that with Pooh.
Hambone: So, if I’m trying to parse greater meaning, it’s sort of that the concrete “facts” don’t intrude on lived reality—twice nineteen means nothing in the woods—but the river is a metaphor for time and acceptance of life “on rails” as you put it. It moves whether you fight it or go with it.
Scoot: I like that a lot.
Hambone: Winnie the Pooh is really deep.
Scoot: That quote was very poetical and perfect speed for a Saturday Morning.
Hambone: Re-reading the quote, Christopher Robin also likes to ascribe his worries to Pooh, so “he would be able to tell Pooh who wasn’t quite sure about some of it” is sort of Christopher’s own sort of worry about the real world and his place in it.
Scoot: Ahhh, that’s cool.
Hambone: There’s a book, “The Tao of Pooh” that tries to make profound points out of various statements in the book but I’m not really interested.
Scoot: Implicit texts1 uber alles.
Hambone: I think people’s initial reaction is the true one. If I need a college professor to explain Pooh to me, AA Milne failed. Which he did not.
Hambone: Maybe children’s wisdom literature is a peasantly pursuit. The author must deeply understand the subject to convey it to a child in an impactful way.
Scoot: That’s a really good point. I am all in favor of peasantly parables. My sci-fi attempt2 stalled out. The climax was supposed to be a king offering the MC a peek behind the curtain at the machinations of politics or he can go home forever and be a farmer. And he was gonna choose the farm.
Hambone: Why’d it stall? Couldn’t get it to flow?
Scoot: I made some plot decisions that were bad and I couldn’t figure out where to take the character next. I can theoretically reboot it and probably will try.
Hambone: I think it’s good sometimes to shelf something. Fresh eyes make a big difference.
Scoot: Yeah
Hambone: Christ wants us to be like children. Many saintly writings were written for cloistered religious. Not to say they aren’t holy and full of wisdom, but I smell of the dirt.
Hambone: Pre-resurrection Christ spoke to us. To normal fallen people. That’s why the parables are so powerful. That’s God’s concerted effort to communicate directly to normal men, face to face. Not priests, prophets, or kings.
Scoot: Nailed it, that’s beautiful.
Hambone: I love that there is a Thomas Aquinas. Thank God for Thomas Aquinas. But I have no need of Thomas Aquinas.
Scoot: Substitute Tommy Q for 19x2.
Hambone: Exactly! It’s not a sin to need Thomas Aquinas, but it’s also not a sin to take Christ at his word: “This is my Body”. The deeper you go, the more treacherous the way.
Scoot: My whole thing is that there are answers to every question. You don’t need to collect all the answers. Just answer the questions that are holding you back.
Hambone: And the pursuit of them, with inadequate guidance and preparation, will lead you astray.
Scoot: Yes, “Behold, ME, knower of answers.”
Hambone: Do I put myself even in the orbit of Thomas Aquinas? We are not called to be theologians.
Scoot: There were 12 disciples and 5,000 to feed. That’s about the ratio to expect.
Hambone: I like that. It’s OK to be a normal person. I am not the protagonist of salvation history.
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Ad Jesum Per Mariam
Don Colacho, whom Hambone and I like to quote, wrote a book called “Escolios a un Texto Implícito” or “Annotations to an Implicit Text”
Nice convo. And... Tommy Aq never lost sight of the peasant truth beneath all his supertheologicalising, fittingly framed by his ‘as so much straw’ farewell.
I like this! More please. 🙏 I never really got into Winnie the Pooh as a child but I live by a river and completely get the river metaphor. I often just stand and watch it flow by.