Mister God, This is Anna

B ook: Mister God, This is Anna; Author: Fynn

“The difference from a person and an angel is easy. Most of an angel is in
the inside and most of a person is on the outside.”
These are the words of a six year old, Anna.
But before I tell you more about her, let me relate the reason why I want to
say anything about her in the first place.
Recently, I was driving my 5 year old niece back home when her maid
started talking about a relative’s passing away. Suddenly, A asked, “Where
has she gone, this aunt of yours?”
Without a pause, she replied, “For a walk”.
I was quiet for a few seconds and then said, “Her aunt has gone to meet
God, and after she says hello, she’ll come back, except we wont be able to
recognize her.”
“If you go to god, and come back, you’ll have the same face , wont you?”
she asked me, a little worried.
 “No. My face, body…all of it will be different,” and then looking at her
saddened face, I put in the childish touch “like magic, it will all become
different.”
The word magic is one she likes very much for I am always playing some
trick or the other, pulling things to munch from behind her ears or
disappearing and re-appearing from different ends of a curtain. Thus
although a new concept of death and its consequences on the one’s left
behind had been introduced to her five year old imagination, the last
punchline of “magic” had made her feel at ease with the truth.
On a little reflection, I realized two things. One, that no one had ever
spoken to me about God or death or afterlife or souls. How and when I
have assimilated these truths inside me is a mystery, for I cannot recall any
time or occasion linked to these realizations. On the other hand, they may
not after all be realizations but simply “facts” that I have become habituated
into believing.
Secondly, we as adults are always quick to dismiss all questions of depth
and gravity, assuming the time is not appropriate in the life of a child, little
realizing that before you know it, the child is an adult, full of a host of ideas
and notions that would be difficult to dislodge… there doesn’t seem to be
any point in discussing such things all of a sudden.
But then I read a book and it made me realize that the sooner we begin to
answer the questions deliberately posed by our children – not questions
that we forcibly put to them, but those they put to us – the faster they begin
to unlock the windows of their souls, letting the mysteries waft in and
unravel themselves. Telling her that the departed have gone for a long walk
would have served no purpose other than some ridiculous notion that when
someone dies it means they are only going for a stroll and instead of it
being the customary one hour long, it takes a few more hours.
For this I have Anna to thank.
“Mister God, This is Anna” is one of the most endearing books I have ever
read and what makes it astounding is that it’s a true story. Anna, a four
year old waif, entered the life of Fynn, one foggy night and remained with
him for the rest of her life. Having been adopted into a lovingly eccentric
household, she soon had family, friends, neighbours and strangers all
wrapped around her special finger and now, she has millions of people all
around the world, completely besotted as well.
As the author puts it, she was a “theologian, mathematician, philosopher,
poet and gardener all rolled into one.” And the ease with which she
exercised her mind to fit into all these roles has left all those who have
known her, reeling with disbelief and wonder. Whether it was a simple
game of hopscotch, collecting seeds, watching Fynn fix a fuse, playing with
geometrical figures or dabbling with the piano, Anna had that wonderful
insight which not only made her understand the academics of it, but get into
the very heart of the matter and in some way, some mind-bogglingly
obscure way, draw the link of the subject or action in question, to God.
While at times it was amazing to see how her thought process had worked
out essential truths that the wise strive after for lives on end, at other times,
her replies were so simple that they seemed almost unbelievable and yet, it
was nothing save the truth that she saw or stated.
For instance, take the conversation between the local parson and Anna –
“Do you believe in God?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what God is?”
“Yes.”
“What is God then?”
“He’s God.”
“Do you go to church?”
“No.”
Why not?
“Because I know it all.”
“What do you know?”
“I know to love Mister God and to love people and cats and dogs and
spiders and flowers and trees – and the catalogue went on- with all of me.”
That was it. To love with ALL of her… in a nutshell that was what Anna
ever was. She tried to explain to Fynn how terrifically simple life was with
Mister God at its centre and when he couldn’t grasp the idea, she laid it all
out.
“Where are you?” she had said.
“Here, of course,” I replied.
“Where’s me then?”
“There!”
“Where do you know about me?”
“Inside myself someplace.”
“Then you know my middle in your middle.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“Then you know Mister God in my middle in your middle, and everything
you know, every person you know, you know in your middle. Every person
and everything that you know has got Mister God in his middle, and so you
have got his mister God in your middle too. Its easy.”
Anna had just explained the idea of identification and unification with God,
through all that lives or doesn’t live. She had explained this on her own,
without reading about it in a book or getting initiated by a teacher. And this
wasn’t a one time, off-chance wise statement. It was something that was so
integral and deeply assimilated into her that she seemed stunned at things
which to her were so obvious but were totally ignored by others. For her,
Mister God could be any size he wanted to be. “If he couldn’t be little, how
could he know what its like to be a ladybird?” He wasn’t meant to be put
into a box and labelled as this or that – he was meant to be free. “Mister
God said ‘I am’ and that’s what he wants us all to say… We got to let Mister
God be free. That’s what love is.” And boy, was she repulsed by the
images of God and his battalion of angels all looking like humans, with
heads and eyes and arms and legs. If God had a head with eyes, then he
would only be able to see in front of him, whereas in truth, he could see all
around him, so how could he have a head?
God wasn’t the prized possession of Man alone, but the entire universe and
she sure put those who prided themselves to be servitors of Mister God in
their right place when she said,
“If you get like Mister God, you don’t know you are, do you?”
“Are what?”
“Good and kind and loving.”
No charades for this morsel. If you know you’re being good, then you’re
not being good…you’re being pretentious.
Speaking of which, it wasn’t that she was overly precautious or cunning for
a six year old, knowing the right words that please others. If that were the
case, she would neither have stumbled across the quintessence of ‘All that
is God’ without reading nor been able to apply it in every moment and
activity of her life. That is something a grown up can do, not a mite whose
love and understanding of her Hero is utterly pure and natural. As Fynn
says, “Anna was not only deeply in love with Mister God; she was proud of
him. Anna’s pride in Mister God grew and grew to such dimensions that in
some idiot moment I wondered if Mister God ever went pink with pleasure.
Whatever feelings people have had about Mister God over the many
centuries, I’m very sure of one thing- nobody has ever liked Mister God
more than Anna.”
It feels imperative to let you glimpse into the world that would take a hold
over Anna when she was in one of her “working out” moods. It is what
could be considered as the rare “original thought” which one is blessed to
experience in the course of a single lifetime and here was this child,
spinning one thought after another, little realizing the damage she was
doing to the sense of illusion that someone like me has, about having
understood it all.
During these few weeks Anna slowly took stock of all she knew, walking
about gently, touching things as if looking for some clue that she had
missed. She didn’t talk much in this period. In reply to questions, she
answered as simply as she could, apologizing for her absence by the
gentlest of smiles, saying without words, “I’m sorry about all this. I’ll be
back as soon as I’ve sorted this little puzzle out.” Finally the whole thing
came to a head.
She turned to me. “Can I come to bed with you tonight?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Now,” she replied.
So there we were in bed, the streetlamp 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 argument in
its proper order, and then she launched forth.
“Mister God made everything, didn’t he?”
There was no point in saying I didn’t 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 we had seen under the microscope.
I said, “Yes, he made everything.”
She nodded her agreement. “Does Mister God love us truly?”
“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 don’t know,” I replied. “There’re a great many things about Mister God,
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 this was going to be one of those times, but thank goodness
she didn’t expect an answer to her question, for she hurried on: “Them
pollywogs, I could love them till I bust, but they wouldn’t know, would they?
I’m million times bigger than they are and Mister God is 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, 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 truly 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 firmly on the next stepping stone.
“No,” she went on, “no, he don’t love me, not like you do, its different, its
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 from 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,
cant I? But Mister God is different. You see, Fynn, people can only love
outside, and can only kiss outside, but Mister God can love you right inside,
and Mister God can kiss you right inside, so its 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 the similarities, but God was not like us because of our differences. Her
inner fires had refined her ideas, and like some alchemist she had 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 because he can finish things and
we cant. I cant finish loving you because I shall be dead millions of years
before I can finish, but Mister God can finish loving you, and so its not the
same kind of love, is it?”
“Fynn, why do people have fights and wars and things?”
I explained to the best of my ability.
“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 points of view, but
Mister God hasn’t. Mister God has only points to view.”
It seemed to me she had taken the whole idea of God outside the limitation
of time and placed him firmly in the realm of eternity.
What about this difference between a point of view and points to view?
This stumped me, but a little further questioning cleared the mystery. Points
to view was a clumsy term. She meant viewing points.
Humanity in general had an infinite number of points of view, whereas
Mister God had an infinite number of viewing points. That means that –
God is everywhere. I jumped.
Anna burst into peals of laughter. “You see,” she said, “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, don’t we? So you see, Fynn, people
cant talk about Mister God from the outside; you can only talk about Mister
God from the inside of him.”
The less said about Anna, the better. For my words can never do justice to
what she was. Yes, was. Little, beautiful, mysterious, Anna, died at the age
of eight. She fell from a tree and even in the last moments of her life, all
she could think about was this precious Mister God, who she would soon
be meeting. My first reaction to her death was one of shock and remorse.
But then I realized that it was only obvious that Anna should be called back
to that Divine body from which she had loosened herself, almost by mistake
it would seem, for she didn’t belong here – the only place for her was in the
middle of Mister God.
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