Anna
Mar 8th, 2009 by livingwater
David Heisler at our Louisville gathering in 2007 made mention of this little golden nugget. I could tell even then it was going to change me. I knew then that I would pursue discovering this as I have with all other things I’ve followed. Like John Sung and Norman Grubb from Leonard Ravenhill that cam from Fire on the Altar that came from a seed sown by Mister God in my heart after I’d listened to Hell’s Best Kept Secret and when I couldn’t for the life of me not understand why folks whom said they were praying to Mister God were sat in comfy chairs and not kneeling like you would before the throne of God at a local city wide prayer meeting.
You see there many threads running through the fabric of our world on the inside and the outside; connection points you see. I think we really are all connected, but our compartment thinking has buggered us up. Almost all people in the world take our cues in life from what Fynn calls banners (a.k. advertising and commercials) the banner that says “if you buy our toothpaste, your life will be perfect” or “if you just have this brand of fags, you’ll be more attractive to the opposite sex” or in politics “if you vote for me, we will save the nation”, all the while missing the more interesting stuf of creation itself, the miracles around us everywhere.
It’s plain to see what’s really going on. We are programed to want things. We are programed like a computer with their software running in our minds. We told we must live in boxes. Oh and Mister God is only in my box. Substitute Box with denomination, or temple, synagogue, mosque, church, etc. How proposterous!
Likewise businesses want your skills to make a profit but want you to leave your emotion and spirit at the door. They talk wellness and wholeness, but have little real idea what they’re even saying. We, people are whole. Anyway I could rant on about that for a while, but nows now the time or place.
Plain to see often if we will slow down and see let Mister God in who is knocking at our door. But most folk don’t.In fact most folk, even in the denominational buckets don’t. But Mister God has a way of being sees eventually. That’s his way and His nature.
Have you really ever seen nature, how trees work, how does a lily grow, flowers, frogs, cats and dogs. Take a dog for instance. DOG > GOD? funny eh! God’s character of unconditional love and forgiveness expresses n a dog who keeps coming back to you even if you shout at it, or beat it (not that ever beat our dog). Funny eh?
Though you might never reflect on this fact if you never see this. Or a tree for instance is probably as big anove the ground as it is below. Almost a mirror image. And how does the Sunflower track the path of the son as it moves through the sky? and how does our body repair itself? and, and, and… each of these are miracles in there own right! Amazing, truly amazing.
I hope you invest a little of your time and bandwidth is reading/listening. You will be blessed beyond measure if you do.
Anyhow, the book outline below from Wikipedia tells a little about it. I would recommend you get a used copy and an audio CD too read nicely by Colin Moody. By the end you’ll know where you and and it’ll bring tears to your eyes. It did to me you know.
Mister God, This Is Anna is a book by Sydney Hopkins under the pseudonym “Fynn” describing the adventures of Anna, a mischievous yet wise five and a half year old who Fynn finds as a runaway. Nineteen year old Fynn’s mother takes her in, he then becomes her caretaker and closest friend. Fynn recounts his time spent with Anna, and gives a very personal account of her outpourings on life, mathematics, science and her mentor, Mister God.
The story begins on the streets of East End London in the mid-1930s. While roaming the docks at night, the author comes across a small girl sitting on the grating below a shop window. He sits down next to her, and from that moment on, his life is never the same. Unable to find out where she came from, Fynn takes the child home, only to discover she is an abused runaway. She spends her next three years as Fynn’s inseparable companion.
The book gives an account of their friendship. Anna by nature is the inquisitor, the forever probing creature who likes to find a rhyme and reason for everything. Fynn being the student, has the task of having to follow her hard-to-understand, yet simple logic.
In the book, philosophical questions are investigated through the eyes of a child, proposing simple, commonsense solutions.
“At five years Anna knew absolutely the purpose of being, knew the meaning of love and was a personal friend and helper of Mister God. At six Anna was a theologian, mathematician, philosopher, poet and gardener. If you asked her a question you would always get an answer—in due course. On some occasions the answer would be delayed for weeks or months; but eventually, in her own good time, the answer would come: direct, simple and much to the point.”
Anna lives her life complete, she is involved with everything. The gist of the book is the philosophy of a child who has the wisdom to comprehend more than what would be expected of her. “She never made eight years, she died by an accident. She died with a grin on her beautiful face. She died saying, ‘I bet Mister God lets me into heaven for this’, and I bet he did too.” (quoted from chapter one of the book.)
The ending of the book describes Anna’s death, and Fynn’s bitterness about it. He visits Anna’s grave and sees it to be a riot of flowers. At that moment he lets go of his angst against God. The answer he realizes is ‘Anna is in my middle’.
This particular reference is to a conversation between Anna and Fynn. God is part of everybody and everybody is part of God. Fynn walks away from her graveyard enlightened.
While this book focuses a lot on the importance of religion and “Mister God” in Anna’s life, this book is really about faith. Mister God, This Is Anna is a book about seeing beauty in things that may not identify as “beautiful” and about the absolute and pure faith Anna bestows to Mister God. Although the story is set in a Christian milieu, the themes that are discussed are not uniquely Christian.
Sydney “Sid” Hopkins spent the last years of his life living in Taunton, Somerset, England. He is buried in the graveyard of Broomfield, a village that lies between the towns of Bridgwater and Taunton. His gravestone bears the inscription: Quod est inveniendum ad glorium Dei sit inveniendum
The sequels of Mister God, This Is Anna are Anna’s Book (1986), and Anna and the Black Knight (1990).
From http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/callanish/39/anna.htm
