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.

A Book is like a Hidden Treasure

A book is like a hidden treasure . . .

A secret hoard in words of wisdom gold

All waiting there, to be discovered . . .

In a tale, a farfetched story, or a thing of facts

A dialogue, a thought, a kaleidoscope of joy 

To take me with it on a knowledge hunt within 

To lead me onwards to see life in me more 

Poem from a Sequence:

A Rain of Booklight
Part 1  # 26

© Judith Evans Deverell, 2014

The Bookmark Project

(Poetry/ Vol. 1. ) Breathing Heaven

from THE RAGGED WRITINGS OF EVERLAND



Breathing Heaven

By myself I can write, and write the dead thing

Alone I can follow leads, and take the wrong one

Destitute I can look for gold, and find only a fool’s

But when I breathe I am in the centre of your will

With you one hundredfold . . .

Not alone: doing always my appointed thing

Breathing – and in every breath I can know I am with you

You give it to me, no one else, you do it for me  

Breathing – and in every breath I am in the right place

Breathing, breathing heaven, there I do no wrong

I can ask for understanding, and chose my own

I can hope for knowledge, and take the wrong kind

I can make a decision, and it can be quite out of line

But when I breathe, I am in the centre of your will

With you in your perfect life a hundredfold . . .

Breathing heaven! 

In the happening-life of the in-and-out of air:  found! 

(Poetry/ Vol. 1. ) Butterfly Bay

Blown of the Wind's Ease

Blown of the wind’s ease in Butterfly Bay

Were thousands of winged things

Flitting by!

Were tempests survived by a lively lament?

Could destiny’s sad-giftings

All spread out?  

Found by the in-breeze in the cradle of life

Were thousands of glimpse-things

Of winged delight!

Dancing’s the remedy for sorrow‘s repine!                  

The butterflies showed me

In rhyming lines    

Up through the twirling air, playing in the calling

Sunbeams in their sad songs

To dance in my mourning

Storms put to rest by my happy demise!

A quick dancing lilt

Comes to catch me up!

Up through the Chesapeake, up through the roof

Up through the hardest part

Of life’s gifted gloom!

Up!  Up! . . . Up!

Angel Wrestling

Two lands and only one border to pass through 

Symbol of the amaranthine line

Dividing unto love entrancing two by one 

Across the luxuriant river twice

Beyond it on the Other Side the dance of two

Two spheres of living

Where parted in twain all was one

It was a lonely

Place

Where the lesser part of fear my only joy

There I met Another

From whom all run away afraid

The fearful apparition love incarnate

To whom we shut our eyes

Any destiny in any fortune – there

Was in total overcoming

But who would dare hang tight

To what of life was death?

There I fought and persevered 

And would not let go

There I learned and unlearned

And decreased by fathoms

There, where I saw in joy, myself my enemy

There I was my own trusted friend in another, greater

This ‘cruel truth’

Who would ever cling to it to win? 

But face to face with self

Was face to face with him

With all my mortal coil all night I wrestled

Yet in my struggle, fought Love personified

All through my dark I died, and died

Till I won

No more alone we two were one

In love prevailing, lighted everywhere we look!

Our mortal wound our joy, our never-ending light!

Just Being Loved!

Loved and held – held and loved! 

A lark’s ascent

A twirling upward spark of life

Flew through me!

Held, held – held in his arms

I felt the gentle pressure of his presence

Holding me tight

And I was completely garrisoned

Against all fear

I was thought of – thought of!

Taught by his song

I felt the inner unravellings of his love

Telling me all

And I was entirely undone

Known in my own story 

Loved, loved – loved by the light!

I felt the waves of his warmth

Leading me through

And I was all-taken of the river

To the Other Side

  

I was, assured – and adored!

Assured by his answer

I felt the kindling rapture of his kindness

Assuring me more

And I was swept up and spent

Utterly loved and renewed

Thought of! And adored!

Adored, and thought of!

As my tides were unforeseen

A streaming in – and a flowing out

A wave of joy sweeps through me

Cared for, and gathered!

Gathered, and cared for

Down through the ages

Searched out and sought for!