For Heaven's Sake

Most of the teds were having a Teddy Bear Picnic outside on a blanket on the grass at the edge of the woods behind the house. Shoshonna, the big, soft, coffee brown, disco-dancing bear was showing the little ones, Faith, Sweetie, Chuffy, Lily-pop, Waldo, and Sparky, how to hold their little teddy tea cups so that their tea with wildflower honey wouldn’t spill. Benjamin and Brighton were off under a tree, rubbing snouts and canoodling.  

Itsy had spied a squirrel and was busily chasing after it into the woods, shouting, “Skirl! Com’ere! Com’ere, skirl!”

“Don’t go very far into the woods, Itsy!” Shoshonna shouted after her.

“Sure!” Itsy’s reply echoed from somewhere deep within the woods.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” muttered Benjamin before resuming his canoodling with Brighton.

I was sitting in my lounge chair on the deck, listening to the Chicago Cubs’ game on the radio. It was early innings yet. Biwi was there, too, sitting cross-legged on one of the railings, training his digital video camera on me, hoping for another of my apparently hilarious silly-human-bean moments. Birnie was seated atop another railing, plotting out his next anti-terrorist attack. He won’t say where it is to take place. Letta was curled up under her own little umbrella painting her claws a brilliant honey-bee yellow.

Mr. Fluffy, polar bear, teddy theologian, and Unibearian minister was seated at a table with his honey bear partner and best buddy, Kippy, a quiet, serious, teddy linguist. They were drinking tea and honey and munching honey cakes, while discussing their plans for recording the oral traditions of teddy spiritual beliefs in Teddish, the traditional teddy language.

Above us all flew the lovely Gracie, her silk gown flowing in the air as she flapped her gossamer wings and hummed to herself. Gracie rarely says much, but she does hum a lot, and quite beautifully, too. She has the voice of an angel, and the disposition, too.

From what I could gather from Kippy and Mr. Fluffy’s conversation, teddy spiritual teachings go rather further back in time than I had imagined, back into antiquity, apparently. I was curious about that, so I asked them, “What are the earliest known teddy spiritual teachings?”

“Oh, that would be the sutras of the first Body Softa,” Mr. Fluffy noted reverently.

“Do you mean the Buddhist sutras?” I asked. “I thought the Buddha wrote those.”

“Actually, he simply transcribed his teddy bear’s teaching,” Kippy tartly informed me.

“Let me guess: his teddy bear’s name was Body Softa.”

“Yes,” Mr. Fluffy affirmed. “He was the first Body Softa.”

“There have been many incarnations of the Body Softa since that time, of course,” Kippy noted. “In fact, Biwi is rumored to be one of the most recent incarnations.”

“Biwi is a Body Softa?” I asked, somewhat surprised.

“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Fluffy, smiling up at Biwi.

Biwi just snickered, while zooming his camera in for a close-up on my face.

“Another famous tradition began with the Tao de Ching,” Mr. Fluffy continued.

“I thought Lao Tzu wrote that,” I said. “Oh, wait. Don’t tell me. He just wrote down what his teddy dictated, right?”

“Yes, of course,” said Kippy. “That was Fuzzy Tzu, the esteemed teddy Taoist.”

Just then Itsy raced out of the woods. “The skirl ranned away!” she pouted.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Benjamin just couldn’t contain himself.

Itsy cast a puzzled look at Benjamin a moment, then ran up to the deck and asked, “What’s a heaven?”

“Oh, my, little one,” Mr. Fluffy murmured, “that is a big question.” Gracie flew over and hovered a little ways above Itsy’s head, intrigued by the turn of conversation.

“Okay,” Itsy allowed indifferently. “So what is it?”

“I suppose you could call it a positive state of mind,” ventured Kippy.

 “Yeah, but where is it?” Itsy wanted to know, scratching behind her left ear and looking more puzzled than ever. “How do you get there?”

A brief silence enveloped everyone on the deck at this question. Into which, without raising his snout from his plans, Birnie interjected, “Take step by careful step.”

To which Biwi, chuckling, added, “Laugh a lot.”

“Follow your heart,” offered Letta before blowing on her newly-painted claws.

“That can’t be right,” Itsy objected.

“Why not?” asked Kippy.

“’Cause your heart don’t go nowhere. It’s right here all the time, right where you are!” Itsy replied, placing a paw over her heart.

“From the mouths of babes,” whispered Kippy.

“Indeed,” said Mr. Fluffy, reaching across the table to tenderly pat the paw of his beloved Kippy.

Indeed.

Cheers erupted from the radio. Bases loaded and nobody out. Gracie lowered her wand and sprayed Itsy with a shower of glittering fairy dust.

Itsy sneezed, “A-choo!” Then she caught sight of a squirrel’s tail in the woods. “Skirl!” she yelled excitedly, running off to give chase. “Com-ere, skirl! Com’ere!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Benjamin roused himself to half-heartedly complain. Then he snuggled back up with Brighton and settled down with everyone else for the rest of a quiet, sleepy afternoon.