Finding our Middle – 40 Days with Anna

Day 17 – Monday after 3rd Sunday of Lent 

To Read:

Our first excursion outside the East End was ‘up the other end’.  For anyone not familiar with that term it simply means west of Aldgate pump.

On this occasion she was dressed in a tartan skirt with shirt-blouse, a black tammy, black shoes with large shiny buckles and tartan socks.  The skirt was tightly pleated so that a twirl produced a parachute-like effect.  Anna walked like a pro, jumped like Bambi, flew like a bird, and balanced like a daring tight-rope-walker on the curbs.  Anna copied her walk from Millie, [known as ‘Venus de Mile End]  who was a prostitute, head held high, the slight sway of body making her skirts swing, a smile on her face, a twinkle in her eye, and – you were defenceless.  People looked and people smiled. Anna was a burst of sunlight after weeks of gloom.  Of course people smiled, they couldn’t help it.  Anna was completely aware of these glances from passers-by, occasionally turning her head to look at me with a big, big grin of pleasure.  Danny said she never walked, she made a royal progress.  Her progress was halted from time to time by her subjects:  stray pussies, dogs, pigeons and horses, to say nothing of postmen, milkmen, bus-conductors and policemen.  

She didn’t find the Bank of England very impressive, nor for that matter St Paul’s;  the pigeons won hands down.  After a little talk we decided to go into the service.  She was very uncomfortable, fidgeting about the whole while.  As soon as the service was over we hurried outside and made straight for the pigeons.  She sat on the pavement and fed them with great pleasure.  I stood a few paces off and just watched her.  Her eyes flicked from place to place, at the doors of the cathedral, the passers-by, the traffic and the pigeons.  Occasionally she tossed her head in disapproval of something. I looked about me to see what it was that affected her so much…

From the Scriptures:

[Jesus said] Look at the birds of the air:  they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they? ²⁷ And which of you by worrying can add a single hour to your span of life? ²⁸ And why do you worry about clothing?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, ²⁹ yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. ³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you – you of little faith?   (Matthew 6v26-30)

To Reflect:

So we move smoothly from a famous picture in Keble College Oxford (The Light of the Worldby Holman Hunt) to a movie picture and an argument about what a young boy in Edwardian London should do with Tuppence; put it in the Bank of England or feed the pigeons outside St Paul’s?  There have been ‘Anna’s’ of all sorts and ages swimming against the flow of the great and the grand and caring for the small and the weak since a baby was born in unplanned circumstances in Bethlehem.

Mind you the Tuppence held firmly in Michael Banks’ fist in Mary Poppins would be worth £1.25 today, which, to be honest wouldn’t buy a bag of bird food at any petting farm.  Michael Banks was on to a good deal…

Wildlife and churches have a chequered history.  It seems that we are very happy to sing about ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ but are less certain when it comes to ‘All Things Creepy and Crawly!’  There is a thin line between what is worthy to be blessed at a St Francis Day service and what requires a visitation by the Diocesan Exterminator!  David Walker’s cartoon says it well.

Anna is very definitely an outdoor child with a whole host of faithful subjects – stray pussies, dogs, pigeons and horses, to say nothing of postmen, milkmen, bus-conductors and policemen – and she seemed to have little time for those who kept big buildings closed to small things.  However I am tempted the next time I am at General Synod in Westminster to see if my friends on the staff of St Paul’s Cathedral would join me in a game of draughts using Prayer Books on the black and white chequered floor just as Anna and Fynn did.

The most important thing about Anna’s procession ‘up the other end’  was not so much which buildings she enjoyed or didn’t or who she met along the way, it was her presence and her smile and, being completely aware of the pleasure her antics gave to those around her, finding even more joy herself.

The mystics call this ‘The Sacrament of the Present Moment’ which seems to grow most readily amongst those who find themselves unimpressed or rejected by the great and the grand but instead invest themselves in the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.  The very same things that Mister God cares for.

I think Anna may have something to teach us here….

 

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Acknowledgements:

Quotes from the book ‘Mister God, This is Anna’ are Copyright © Fynn 1975

Illustrations from the book ‘Mister God, This is Anna’ and ‘Anna and the Black Knight’ are Copyright © Pappas 1975

Psalm Prayers from Common Worship: Daily Prayer, material from which is included here, is copyright © The Archbishops’ Council 2005 and published by Church House Publishing

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition.  Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

These Reflections, ‘Finding our Middle – 40 Days with Anna’ are copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2025 and may be reproduced without charge on condition that the source is acknowledged.