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Excerpted Inspirations #184

  • Writer: Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
    Linda Odhner, with photos by Liz Kufs
  • Jun 30
  • 0 min read
[Fynn and Anna are discussing Anna’s Sunday school class. Anna is about six.] In easy stages I was led to accept the fact that the bigger the difference between us and Mister God the more Godlike Mister God became. At such a time when the difference was infinite, then would Mister God be absolute. “What’s all this got to do with Sunday-school Teacher? She certainly knows about the difference.” “Oh yes,” nodded Anna. “So what’s the problem?” “When I find out things it makes the difference bigger and Mister God gets bigger.” “So?” “Sunday-school Teacher makes the difference bigger but Mister God stays the same size. She’s frightened.” “Hey, hold on a tick. How come she makes the difference bigger and Mister God stays the same size?” I nearly lost the answer; it was one of those real “give-away” lines. Tossed off so quietly. “She just makes people littler.” Fynn, Mister God, This Is Anna (1974) in Anna and Mister God (1998), pp. 108 [Continued next time] [Liz, you could split the quote here and make it a two-parter.] [Continued from last time.] Then she [Anna] went on: “Why do we go to church, Fynn?” “To understand Mister God more.” “Less.” “Less what?” “To understand Mister God less.” “Wait a blessed minute. You’re flipped!” “No, I’m not.” “You most certainly are.” “No. You go to church to make Mister God really really big. When you make Mister God really really really big, then you really really don’t understand Mister God – then you do.” She was just a little surprised and disappointed to learn that this was over my head, way over my head, but she explained. When you’re little you “understand” Mister God. He sits up there on his throne, a golden one of course; he has got whiskers and a crown and everyone is singing hymns like mad to him. God is useful and usable. You can ask him for things, he can strike your enemies deader than a doornail and he is pretty good at putting hexes on the bully next door, like warts and things. Mister God is so “understandable,” so useful and so usable, he is like some object, perhaps the most important object of all, but nevertheless an object and absolutely understandable. Later on you “understand” him to be a bit different but you are still able to grasp what he is. Even though you understand him, he doesn’t seem to understand you! He doesn’t seem to understand that you must have a new bike, so your “understanding” of him changes a bit more. In whatever way or state you understand Mister God, so you diminish his size. He becomes an understandable entity among other understandable entities. So Mister God keeps shedding bits all the way through your life until the time comes when you admit freely and honestly that you don’t understand Mister God at all. At this point you have let Mister God be his proper size and wham, there he is laughing at you. Fynn, Mister God, This Is Anna (1974) in Anna and Mister God (1998), pp. 108-109

 
 
 
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