Tonight I want to share a part of a book I am very slowly reading. Its called "Mister God This is Anna" and its by Fynn (there is no last name given), it was published in 1977 by Fount Paperbacks.
The book is written for the perspective of Fynn, a 19yo young man who takens in a 6yo girl who has run away from an abusive home. The girl, Anna, has an amazing view of the world and of God especially, and this is what the book is about. This section is where Anna is talking to Fynn about God's love.
I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. I did do bible reading today and I also did one on one with Sarah C which also made me think. But both readings were about being wary of worldly things and trying to stay on God's path in a polluted world. That is an important lesson to but with the way I am feeling tonight I wanted to focus on God's infinite love for us.
The book is written for the perspective of Fynn, a 19yo young man who takens in a 6yo girl who has run away from an abusive home. The girl, Anna, has an amazing view of the world and of God especially, and this is what the book is about. This section is where Anna is talking to Fynn about God's love.
"So we were in bed, the street lamp lighting up the room, her head cupped in her hands, and both elbows firmly planted on my chest. I waited. She chose to remain like that for about ten minutes, getting her arguement in its proper order, and then she launched forth.Ok so that was longer than I remembered but I think it was important to share. It really made me think about what Love means in human terms and how that is really different from God. I dont think we can truely comprehend God's love because its so much bigger than we are.
'Mister God made everything, didnt he?'
There was no point in saying that I didnt really know. I said 'Yes'.
'Even the dirt and the stars and the animals and the people and the trees and everything, and the pollywogs?' The pollywogs were those little creatures that we had seen under the microscope.
I said, 'Yes, he made everything'
She nodded her agreement. 'Does Mister God love us truely?'
'Sure thing', I said. 'Mister God loves everything.'
'Oh', she said. 'Well then, why does he let things get hurt and dead?' Her voice sounded as if she felt she had betrayed a sacred trust, but the question had been thought and it had to be spoken.
'I dont know', I replied. 'There's a great many things about Mister God that we don't know about.'
'Well then,' she continued, 'if we don't know many things about Mister God, how do we know he loves us?'
I could see that this was going to be one of those times, but thank goodness she didnt expect an answer to her question for she hurried on: 'Them pollywogs, I could love them till I bust, but they wouldnt know, would they? I'm million times bigger than they are and Mister God is a million times bigger than me, so how do I know what Mister God does?'
She was silent for a little while. Later I thought that at this moment she was taking her last look at babyhood. Then she went on:
'Fynn, Mister God doesn't love us.' she hesitated. 'He doesn't really, you know, only people can love. I love Bossy (Bossy is a cat that is mentioned earlier), but Bossy don't love me. I love the pollywogs, but they don't love me. I love you, Fynn, and you love me, don't you?
I tightened my arm about her.
'You love me because you are people. I love Mister God truely, but he don't love me.'
It sounded to me like a death-knell.'Damn and blast', I thought. 'Why does this have to happen to people? Now she's lost everything.' But I was wrong. She had got both feet planted very firmly on the next stepping-stone.
'No,' she went on, 'no, he don't love me, not like you do, it's different, it's millions of times bigger.'
I must have made some movement or noise for she levered herself upright and sat on her haunches and giggled. Then she launched herself at me and undid my little pang of hurt, cut out the useless spark of jealousy with the delicate sureness of a surgeon.
'Fynn, you can love better than any people that ever was, and so can I, can't I? But Mister God is different. You see, Fynn, people can only love the outside and can only kiss outside, but Mister God can love you right inside, and Mister God can kiss you right inside, so it's different. Mister God ain't like us; we are a little bit like Mister God, but not much yet.'
It seemed to me to reduce itself to the fact that we were like God because of some similarities but God was not like us because of our differences. Her inner fires had refined her ideas, and like some alchemist turned lead into gold. Gone were all the human definitions of God, like Goodness, Mercy, Love and Justice, for these were merely props to describe the indescribable.
'You see, Fynn, Mister God is different from us because he can finish things and we can't. I can't finish loving you because I shall be dead millions of years before I can finish, but Mister God can finish loving you, and so it's not the same kind of love, is it? Even Mister Jether's love is not the same as Mister God's because he only came here to make us remember.'
The first salvo was enough for me; it all needed a bit of thinking about, but I wasnt going to be spared the rest of her artillery.
'Fynn, why do people have fights and wars and things?'
I explained to the best of my aability.
'Fynn, what is the word for when you see it in a different way?'
After a minute or two scrabbling about, the precise phrase she wanted was dredged out of me, the phrase 'point of view'.
'Fynn that's the difference. You see, everybody has got a point of view, but Mister God hasn't. Mister God has only points to view.'
At this moment my one desire was to get up and go for a long, long walk. What was this child up to? What had she done? In the first place, God could finish things off, I couldn't. I'll accept that, but what did it mean? It seemed to me that she had taken the whole idea of God outside the limitations of time and placed him firmly in the realm of eternity.
What about this difference between between 'a point of view' and 'points to view'? This stumped me, but a little further questioning cleared up the mystery. 'Points to view' was a clumsy term. She meant 'viewing points'. The second salvo had been fired. Humaity in general had an infinite number of points of view, whereas Mister God had infinite number of viewing points. When I put it to her this way and asked her if that was what she meant, she nodded her agreement and then waited to see if I enjoyed the taste. Let me see now. Humanity has unfinite number of points of view. God has infinite number of viewing points. That means that - God is everywhere. I jumped
Anna burst into peals of laughter, 'you see,' she saud, 'you see?' I did too.
'There's another way that Mister God is different.' We obviously hadn't finished yet. 'Mister God can know things and people from the inside too. We only know them from the outside, dont we? So you see, Fynn, people can't talk about Mister God from the outside; you can only talk about Mister God from the inside of him.' "
(page 39 - 43, of Mister God this is Anna, by Fynn)
I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. I did do bible reading today and I also did one on one with Sarah C which also made me think. But both readings were about being wary of worldly things and trying to stay on God's path in a polluted world. That is an important lesson to but with the way I am feeling tonight I wanted to focus on God's infinite love for us.
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I just bought this book a few weeks ago. I think I will start reading it today. Have a great day.