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    Mister God, This is Anna
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    Mister God, This is Anna
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    Mister God, This is Anna
    Ebook245 pages3 hours

    Mister God, This is Anna

    By Fynn, Dr. Rowan Williams and Hayden Herrera

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 20, 2013
    ISBN9780007375677
    Unavailable
    Mister God, This is Anna

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    Reviews for Mister God, This is Anna

    4/5

    219 ratings12 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      one-of-a-kind read.
    • 5/5
      This is an extraordinary description of a friendship between a precocious six year old girl and Fynn, a young East Ender. The story takes place just before the Second World War. Anna has wonderful insights into the nature of God, which she often explains in terms of her scientific ‘experiments’ with light and shadow, time and language. It’s easy to read, and worth reading by any Christian adult who wants to encourage children in their life of faith. 1.Fynn’s and Anna’s friendship is a wonderful model of adult-child friendship;2.Anna’s understanding of God and how we should relate to him is moving and inspiring.3.The language they use to describe God demonstrates ways in which even little children can be depth theologians.It’s hard to forget the idea of being ‘in Mister God’s middle’ and Mister God being in our middle. Anna just took the idea for granted.© Ted Witham
    • 2/5
      Rated: DHeartwarming story about a little orphan girl's theology and how it influences the thoughts and actions of adults in her world. Some good theology and some bad theology. The idea that there is One God is good. The idea that He has many names is true if we are talking about the same God. The idea that the name of God in one religion is the same God called by a different name in a different religion is bad. The character and conduct of the God of the Old & New Testaments is remarkably different than the gods of other religions and vis-versa. It is a wonderfully nice philosophy to believe nice things about the beliefs of other like we are basically all the same -- but we are not universal believers in the same theology. That day will come upon Christ’s return.
    • 4/5
      This book about the life and beliefs of an eight year old girl is a remarkable treasure. Anna will lead you through different aspects of her life and show you the world through a child's eyes. She will show you the beauty of this World in simple yet astounding ways. Be prepared to pause in wonder!
    • 5/5
      An incredibly moving account of the life of a young girl. Challenges you to think about your relationship with God. Brought tears to my eyes reading it. Illustrations complement the text. Compulsive reading.
    • 2/5
      Fynn comes from east London and is in his late teens when he meets Anna, a small girl, one evening. He takes her home to his mother, where she is taken in and quickly becomes a fixture in the household. This story is the tale of her time with the family, and her ‘insights’ into God and the universe. I’d read great reviews of this one, but I found it quite dull, frankly. I found Anna herself to be nothing short of implausible; I studied theology at university and struggled to believe that any five-year-old would regard God in the way that she did. I felt like Fynn got hopelessly bogged down in the intricacies of the theological ramblings, and didn’t devote enough to the actual story itself, which seemed like it could have been really gripping. The end of the book is very moving, but I was still quite glad when it was over.
    • 5/5
      My life changed when I read this book. My life will continue to change because I read this book. I could never read this book enough times to be immune to all of the layers of meaning, the challenges to self-satisfied certainty and invitations to experience wonder that this little book brings to the reader. If you've ever known an extraordinary child, if you've ever believed in an extraordinary God, if you've ever thought that maybe there is more to this life than staying off the grass, take the time to spend some time with Anna.
    • 5/5
      Mister God, This is Anna by Fynn 1974London's dockland, outside a baker's shop, night-time two to three years before the start of World War II, is where it all began. Fynn, a young man of age 19, stepped out of the shop and saw what appeared to be a stray four-year old girl sitting near a heating vent. He sat down and shared the silence with her and then shared his hot dogs with her...and so began the biggest adventure of his life.He enquired and found her name to be "Anna". She came to be known to him variously as Mouse, Hum, Joy, or Tich. Finding that no one loved or cared for her he did what any loving person would do and took her home where she lived with him and his family until her death shortly before she reached the age of 8 years old. In that short time they experienced a lifetime of learning, together.Fynn had an insatiable thirst for mathematics which he quenched in his spare time. She would request that he read passages of his studies aloud and they would discuss them together; and this was extremely advanced mathematics which lead to the exploration of tengential subjects at whim. Words, numbers, ideas, mirrors, colored glasses all became things...ways to understand God better.From this Anna determined, and explained to Fynn that:God has an infinite number of viewing points.Mister God (her name for him) is empty because he accepted everything as opposed to reflecting it back as light does.She was never willing to put God in a box because she realized he was bigger than any of our meaningless labels of him. Examples of a conversations between Anna and Fynn follow:"Fynn," she said quietly, "compare two with three.""One less," I murmured in a fug of contentment."Um. Now compare three with two.""One more.""That's right, one les is the same as one more.""Uh-huh," I grunted, "one less is the same as... ~~HEY!"pg. 47"Mister God goes right through my middle and I go right through Mister God's middle." This was discovered as she played with two brass rings which were inherently linked. pg. 50"Ain't it funny, Fynn: Every number is the answer to squillions of questions?" pg. 65"It's all pretty obvious, so obvious that it would take an idiot not to see it! We all know that Mister God made man in his own image and images are found in mirrors. Mirrors turned you back to front or left to right. Images were take-away things. So putting it all together, Mister God was and Mister God is on one side of the mirror, Mister God was on the add side. We were on the other side of the mirror so we were on the take-away side. We ought to have known that. When Mum puts the toddler down and backs off a few paces she does so in order to encourage the toddler to walk to her. So did Mister God. Mister God puts you down on the take-away side of the mirror and then asks you to find your way to the add side of the mirror. You see he wants you to be like him." pg. 102The bigger the difference between God and his creation, the more God-like God becomes. But Sunday school teachers have it wrong because they emphasize God's God-ness by keeping God the same size...and making people smaller. 105"Two kinds of light: a pretend one and a real one. Lucifer and Mister God. " 120"Being safe meant not doing things at all; being saved meant trusting in another." 131God's biggest miracle was the seventh day because that is when He created rest. Rest could only be created when all the "muddle" was organized (by Him). 133Ultimately, their world became a world of questions and anwers; one in which the questions were the more important of the two, because they led to more and better questions and deeper understanding, along with a greater sense of how little we really know. People go to church to understand God less because it is only as we come to understand how little we know that we can truly fathom God's true being. 106In writing of their story, Fynn never set out to dwell on the hurt that the loss of Anna brought. Anna taught him how to really live and eventually he carried on in that which would make her very happy, indeed. Anna's life was so well-lived and she was so wise that the end of her life didn't really mark the end of something; it definitely marked the beginning of the rest of her adventure.And so I will end my review of this book on this note:Once when asked by someone "You're a bit young for this, aren't you, little one?"...he got his answer, "I'm old enough to live, mister," said Anna quietly.pg. 150
    • 4/5
      I read this in Junior High, to this day it is one of the few books to ever make me cry, which is probably why I've never reread it, but I still have the copy I owned way back when and I haven't needed to reread it, it has stuck with me all this time.I find it interesting that none of my memories of this book focus on it's use of God as a them, character or even guiding principle in the story. I have no memory at all of that aspect of this book. Which to me actually makes it a stronger book as it means it holds on it's own without relying on knowledge of it's religious elements to draw you to it or involve you in it.
    • 5/5
      I love the way that Anna finds God everywhere and takes God out of the church and out of "the box." Her love of life and the wonders of science and math are inspiring. The story is touching, well-written and easy to read.
    • 5/5
      This is an extraordinary description of a friendship between a precocious six year old girl and Fynn, a young East Ender. The story takes place just before the Second World War. Anna has wonderful insights into the nature of God, which she often explains in terms of her scientific ‘experiments’ with light and shadow, time and language. It’s easy to read, and worth reading by any Christian adult who wants to encourage children in their life of faith. 1.Fynn’s and Anna’s friendship is a wonderful model of adult-child friendship;2.Anna’s understanding of God and how we should relate to him is moving and inspiring.3.The language they use to describe God demonstrates ways in which even little children can be depth theologians.It’s hard to forget the idea of being ‘in Mister God’s middle’ and Mister God being in our middle. Anna just took the idea for granted.© Ted Witham
    • 5/5
      "But with them, difficulties and adversities were merely occasions for doing something. Ugliness was the chance to make beautiful. Sadness was the chance to make glad"