If you looked for The Wind in the Willows at the library, you probably found it listed in either the "young adult" or the "children" section. Your first encounter with Toad, Mole and the Water Rat may have occurred on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride at Disneyland. Such things may have prejudiced you before you read the book.

After reading the book, your prejudice may have grown stronger. Some editions feature cutesy pictures of the woodland characters. The stories themselves are simple, with a fairly basic vocabulary. "What," you may justly ask yourself, "do kids' stories about rodents and other amusement park icons have to do with great literature?"

Fair question. After all, it's safe to say that Kenneth Grahame didn't set out to produce great literature when he wrote these stories. The first adventures of Mole and Water Rat were bedtime stories that he told to his young son, Alastair. When Alastair was six, he spent his summer vacation away from his father, but Grahame kept him supplied with his bedtime stories by mail. Once on paper, it was relatively easy to publish the collection as The Wind in the Willows.

Many people set out to create great literature and never do it; a lucky few create great literature without even realizing they've done it. Kenneth Grahame falls into this second group.

Great art can roughly be defined as "skilled human creativity that reflects God's truth and God's beauty." Apply this criteria to The Wind in the Willows. Is it skillfully written? You bet. If an author doesn't have to use big words to communicate his message, there's no law that says he must use them. Is the author a human? Okay, skip that one—that's fairly obvious. Do the stories reflect God's beauty? Absolutely. Few men have better described the ordered variety of the seasons and the comedy of relationships. Do the stories reflect God's truth?

Ah, that's the biggie. How can really profound truth be captured in a children's story, especially a story made up of animals instead of humans? How can a story that is basically light-hearted, with no shock value, communicate anything but the simplest truths?

By asking these questions, however, we have revealed our prejudice. When we think of profound truths, we tend to contrast them with "simple truths" or "basic truths." The deepest truths, our bias says, are the most complex.

Such a prejudice is unfounded. Actually, the most profound truths are the simplest. It's just that expressing them usually means spouting platitudes and clichés that no one really hears any more.

For example, what is the most profoundest truth a person can embrace? Simple: trust Christ. Trust Christ to pro-vide, protect, heal, and to die on the cross and rise again so that we might die and rise again with Him. Difficult to grasp? Not really. It requires only the faith of a little child. In fact, it is best clung to with the faith of a little child. (Matthew 18:1-4)

The only problem with this simple (and most profound) truth is that it's easy to tune out because we've heard it so many times. If someone can convey this simple truth to us again, in a meaningful way that we really hear, we will be refreshed by the deepest truth known to man.

One more example: what's the secret to living rightly? Simple: follow Christ. Not just when it's easy or comfortable or convenient, but always—follow Christ. "No one," says Christ, "who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." (Luke 9:62) Is this profound? You bet. But it's also straightforward—as one T-shirt slogan words it, "The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing." Don't look back.

Unfortunately, our prejudice against "simple truth" keeps us from enjoying some of the most refreshing reminders of truth ever written. Try reading "Us Two"—a poem about Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh—in A.A. Milne's poetry book Now We Are Six. If you discount it as only a kid's rhyme, you're depriving yourself of a moving communication of one of the world's most important truths. Let this not be the case in our examination of The Wind in the Willows.

Since it would take a whole book to adequately explore all the truth contained in these simple stories, we will have to content ourselves with examining three basic themes that point us toward profound truth.

1. The world around us fairly screams that it was designed by a glorious, orderly Creator.

Have you ever tried to write a fresh, accurate description of the grandeur of nature? Nothing will reduce you to incoherence faster. It seems that all the good metaphors and all the best imagery have already been so overused that no one even thinks about them anymore. And then along comes Kenneth Grahame. Listen again to the way he describes the Water Rat's river:

Never in his life had [the Mole] seen a river before—this sleek, sinuous, full-bodied animal, chasing and chuckling, gripping things with a gurgle and leaving them with a laugh, to fling itself on fresh play-mates that shook themselves free, and were caught and held again. All was a-shake and a-shiver—glints and gleams and sparkles, rustle and swirl, chatter and bubble. The Mole was bewitched, entranced, fascinated. By the side of the river he trotted as one trots, when very small, by the side of a man who holds one spell-bound by exciting stories; and when tired at last, he sat on the bank, while the river still chattered on to him, a babbling procession of the best stories in the world, sent from the heart of the earth to be told at last to the insatiable sea.

Grahame's ability to describe nature as it really is spills over to the animal world, as well. His animals' personalities reflect their real world counterparts: Badger is furtive and just a little dangerous, the field mice are fussy, and the Mole is hard-working, if a little sheltered.

By the end of the book, Grahame has helped us to see the natural world with "fresh" eyes again—and we find, when we look at it closely, that God's signature is everywhere. (Romans 1:20)

2. Wise people are content wherever God leads them.

We all know someone like Mr. Toad. If we're lucky, we also know someone like the Water Rat. Side by side, their personalities contrast each other in a way that reminds us to "bloom where we're planted." Toad has plenty: good friends, a gorgeous house in a pleasant place, enough to eat—but he is constantly dissatisfied. He seeks to "improve" his life with possessions, first boats, then horsecarts, and finally motor-cars. Nothing works. Meanwhile, the Water Rat is content with his simple hole at the river's edge. His house gets wet in the spring when the river rises, and his life is fairly routine— but he wouldn't trade places with any-one. When he comes under the spell of the Sea Rat, who describes far away places and belittles the Water Rat's lot, his dissatisfaction is described as a "fit" or "attack," and he is snapped out of it by a good friend describing the charms of their simple existence.

It is no accident that Water Rat is, on the whole, a much more pleasant animal than Toad. Those content with their lives are more apt to cherish friends, family, and the world around them. The dissatisfied focus their attention on them-selves, on improving their own lot. Small wonder, then, that St. Paul models the former attitude for us: "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation,
whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." (Philippians 4:12)

3. If you take yourself too seriously, you're bound to wind up looking silly.

Who winds up dressed like a washer-woman? Clever Toad, popular Toad, successful Toad. From the first time we meet him, Toad's whole attitude makes the reader suspicious that some such embarrassment will befall him. People are quick to see through arrogance and conceit— which should be reason enough to be humble. More importantly, God resists the proud. (James 4:6) Flaunting our proper state as creatures desperately in need of God is a recipe for being "put in our place." Are you occasionally prideful? Repent, before you find yourself dressed as a washerwoman!

Of course, just considering the possibility that The Wind in the Willows is great literature has helped us begin to set aside one type of pride: intellectual snobbery. Stay on your toes—this is a constant danger for readers. As soon as we read Shakespeare, we think we're too good for "children's stories." Ha! We should take care instead that children's stories like The Wind in the Willows don't become too good for us.

"Our life is frittered away by detail," writes Henry David Thoreau. "Simplify, simplify." This holds true for our thought life. Day-to-day cares and complex truths should never blind us to the simplest, most profound truths. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.

JEFF BALDWIN is the author of ion and co--author of The Summit Guide to Choosing a College. He works full-time with World View Academy, training young people at camps across the country. He lives in Colorado Springs with his wife and two children.