Story. ) A Point of View . . .

(from book manuscript: A Circle of Swift Songs: A Circlet of Inner-Life Stories)




                                  A Point of View

   THE MORE I LISTENED the more I understood; and the more I saw that I was one thing and God was another, altogether other! I could see in some ways, but God could see in all ways. And as I learned, and from six year-old Anna, years ago: people, they have a point of view, but God has points to view; and that makes all the difference!

   Oh, I had points of view, ad infinitum. But I saw them like I was seeing only one; for I stood upon my point, and I looked at ‘it.’ I looked at it for ages. I looked at it for so long, that the space around it grew smaller and smaller. It went in and in. I went in and in on it. And, more and more, till in the end, it got so pinned down, that all I saw was only a fraction of what I began with; and I got lost inside; and got stuck.

   I came to see that I needed to draw a picture of this, to better understand what it was that I was actually learning. So I fetched a page of cartridge paper and the stub of a pencil; and I drew.

   I drew a large square, on my nice piece of white paper, and then I wrote, and near the bottom of the page: ‘This is my ‘first-thought-square.’ It is the beginning of my point of view. It is a lovely big shape. It is a broad view.’ I looked at it awhile, and considered.

   Then, taking up my pencil again, I drew another square, of the same shape, but inside the first one, a bit smaller. I kept going drawing shape after shape inside the one before it; until I couldn’t fit in any more, inside my original shape.

   Now I had a picture of my way of viewing things.

   I added to what I had written: ‘Now I can see my view if I keep staring at it. I can see what happens to it. It gets smaller and smaller; narrower and narrower; and so un-broad, in fact, that I lose my way in it.  I get trapped: forever, lost, looking inside it!’

   I stood back from my drawing. And again, considered it for a time. Of course. It was yet another picture of life. Of the way things are. And how and why it happened that people became shrunk.

   It was like a child’s ‘first-thought’ of: “GOD.” The child starts with one big thought of him. It is big. It is very big. It is huge! But then eventually the child discovers for himself, (or, as is more usually the case, somebody kindly discovers for him, to ‘help’ him,) A Point of View. The child’s freedom immediately shrinks, his picture zooms in and in; and he gets stuck in it . . . and, sometimes, for a very long time.

   Yes. Once we all had one opinion. Now we had squillions of them. But I know that God is different to us: he is the other way around; he has squillions of Points to View: an infinite number of points to view from. So, having every viewing point that there could possibly be to view everything from, he is everywhere, and sees everything!

   From a squillion standing places God looks out. Not in.

   He doesn’t judge things he doesn’t have a point of view.

   He has points he can view from. So, he, the light, can show us everything; and all the time; and with no condemnation; because he isn’t anywhere standing on a point, but everywhere standing on them all! And that makes all the difference!

   As he sees things he reveals them: he opens them out, and shows them; he shows them not in opinions nor in judgments, but in truth, truth to view. (…It is we who get him wrong and make him ‘back-to-front:’ in our own image.)

   A Point of View has edges to it; it is become, a certain thing, so it has a certain, form, shape: edges. But Viewing Points have no comprehension of edges; for they are places to look out from.

   My view locks me in. God’s view lets me out.

   There is no judging from ‘points-to-view-from,’ no condemning: for all seen all known; and all known all understood; and all understood all forgiven; and all forgiven all loved; and all the World! And everyone in it!

   We see from the outside and look in.

   God sees from the inside and looks out.

   I picked up my bit of pencil and the piece of paper again, and beneath the first drawing of my life – of shapes going in and in – I drew a new one, of the opposite, of all the shapes going out; outside, and beyond, the one before.

   God looks out and out; and out. And his vision expands wider and wider; and wider. So his view has no end. And in having no end it had no edges. And his edge-less way is how I would see, now, too. I am inside of him. And with him see from his seeing places. And light, it keeps growing and opening . . . and exploding! Shooting out, and beyond, through everything . . . and everywhere!  ‘Viewing Places’ . . . it made all the difference!

  

                                                           *

   

____________________ 

 ‘The diffrense 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.’ -  Mister God, This is Anna;  by Fynn.       

                

Story: 9. ) Treasure Books / from A BOOK IS LIKE A SACRED ISLE; A Rain of Booklight

Treasure Books

   ‘The differense from a person and an angel is easy. Most of an angel is on the inside and most of a person is on the outside.’ - Anna *

    Maybe only two or three times in a lifetime one comes across a book that is completely unforgettable and it becomes for you your own particular treasure. You can pin significant turns in your life to it; it sparks a definite chain of incidents that you will always know stemmed from that book. It speaks to you: knowing you. In a strange way it knows the real you; and you know ‘it.’ Though you can hardly call it, an ‘it;’ for to you it has life of its own. Somewhere deep inside it resonates with every fibre of your being; and almost without realizing it, your core-being is stamped with a deep affirmation of its identity and confirmation of its hitherto unwoken dreams.
   One such book in my own life is Mister God, this is Anna; by Fynn; (illustrated by Papas;) a close second are its two sequels Anna’s Book, and Anna and the Black Knight. The first book was a bestseller in the 1970’s, and was still around in the 80’s, and even into the 90’s, (but by then it was demoted or downgraded into Collins Religious Division.) It once blossomed all over the world and touched many lives. But now Anna and Fynn have faded from the scene completely; her beloved ‘Mister God’ an embarrassment to today’s anti-God society. The books are no longer in the local library; they have even been thrown out of ‘churches:’ innocence has largely departed from the populous as a whole, and the institutional church couldn’t cope with Anna’s liberty. For her opinion of church was that you only needed to go once, because ‘once you’d got the message you didn’t need to go back; if you did, well, you hadn't got it, had you?’ and Anna ‘had it,’ so never needed to go back.
   Anna’s whole life, filled to the brim with love and joy was a jubilant going forward into the unknown with her delicious but sometimes scary, 'Mister God;' and the only place where she knew he lived was ‘…in yer middle!’
   Anna was a five-year-old Cockney waif, found in the 1940’s dockside streets of London, by Fynn, a caring and intelligent young man who took her home to live with Mum and him, and their motley collection of the lost and bedraggled. And, until her tragic death less than three years later, she never made it to eight, she taught them all where God was.
   Anna found good and God where others didn’t. Her best friends were the prostitutes from the house down the street; and they adored her: she found them all angels: ‘cos they don’t know they’re beautiful.’ ‘But they are, ain't they, Fynn?’ This stunning, mind-boggling book, relevant to every generation, is a true story, it all really happened and it deserves a place on every bookshelf; it could still change the world; its impact needed now, more than ever.
  It came into my life not long after I had found out, I was found out on the inside, which wonder of wonders made me very happy. Mister God, this is Anna was given me, surreptitiously, in a brown paper bag, by a beautiful elderly churchman who could see me on the inside, too. But it was not until many years later that I understood why he had given it to me.
   It wasn't until after I had escaped the net and traps of the institutions and swam and flew freely, at liberty from all fishbowls and birdcages that I truly comprehended the book. (I have since reread it again, twice.) Its simple but glorious message struck me anew at once, and wonderfully confirmed and affirmed my new liberty. And, like he hoped, I never went back.
   From then on I wrote continuously, and wrote my way out of the next level of the trap; out of every vestige of its invisible and crippling, internal effects – the trap ‘in my middle.’ And I followed in unspeakable joy further and further this adorable, red-headed, little six-year-old, to places within me both boundless and wide. You only need one book, one TREASURE BOOK, to hear a message that seems to have been written just for you.

                                       

                                                          *

* The opening sentence of the book, Mister God, this is Anna; by Fynn, illus. Papas; William Collins & Sons Ltd., 1974, (ninth reprint 1976,) London. (This British edition of the book has a wonderful, illuminating Introduction by Vernon Sproxton.) Anna’s Book; Henry Holt and Company, 1987, New York. Anna and the Black Knight; William Collins & Sons Ltd., 1990, London.