Finding our Middle – 40 Days with Anna
Day 18 – Tuesday after 3rd Sunday of Lent
To Read:
…From St Paul’s we moved off towards Hyde Park. After all these months I was beginning to be rather proud of the fact that more and more I was learning to think along with Anna. I was beginning to understand the way she thought and the way she said things. This particular afternoon I had forgotten, no, not forgotten, hadn’t realized one simple fact. It was this. Up to now Anna’s visual horizon had been one of houses, factories, cranes and a toppling inwards of structure. Suddenly there were the open, and to her, the very open, spaces of the park. I wasn’t ready for her reaction. She took one look, buried her face in my stomach, grabbed me with both hands, and howled. I picked her up and she clung to me like a limpet, arms tight around my neck and legs around my waist, sobbing into my neck. I made all the appropriate noises, but this didn’t help much.
After a few minutes she took a sneaky look over her shoulder and stopped crying.
I said, ‘Want to go home, Tich?’ and she shook her head.
‘You can put me down now’, she said.
I think I had expected her to give one whoop and gallop off across the grass. A couple of hearty sniffs and a moment or two to gain her composure, and we started off to explore the park, but she held on to my hand very tightly. Like any other child, Anna had her fears, but unlike most children she recognized them. And with this recognition came the realization that she could go on in spite of them.
How can any adult know the exact weight of that fright? Does it mean that the child is timid, alarmed, anxious, petrified, or frozen stiff with terror? Is a ten-headed monster more frightening than an Idea? If she hadn’t exactly mastered her fear, whatever it was, she had got it well under control. By now she was prepared to let go of my hand, to make a little sortie after something that interested her, always looking back to make sure I was there. So I stopped in my tracks and waited for her. She was still a little bit scared and she knew that I was aware that she was scared too. The fact that I stopped whenever she let go of my hand brought forth a grateful little smile of acknowledgement.
From the Scriptures:
If any of you cause one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea… Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven. (Matthew 18v6,10)
To Reflect:
Sometimes, in amidst all her understanding of the bigness of Mister God I forget that the reason why Anna can do this and I can’t is that Anna herself is small.
It seems she can cope with the idea of a squillion ( it was she who popularised the word long before the likes of Terry Pratchett got hold of it[i]), especially when it related to Mister God, but today it’s the smaller bignesses that she struggles with. Fynn explains that this might have been due to her background growing up on the streets of East London having no greenery or expansive London Parks to roam. And they are big, even to those of us who are older.
When I am at Church House, Westminster for meetings I often stay at the Victory Service Club near Marble Arch and am able to walk from one to the other almost completely on the greensward of Hyde Park, Green Park and St James’ Park. Walking back in the afternoons I see Anna’s story being acted out again and again. Small people discovering how big the world is, holding tightly to a comforting hand, taking careful steps to inspect a passing duck, running back to check that the comforting hand is exactly where they left it and then, reassured, spreading their wings further afield attracted by the bigness of the big they fear.
Those of us who call ourselves adults have a sacred trust to be that comforting hand for children of all ages who walk with us as they learn walk on their own two feet and tread the paths of this world. This is not just about teaching the Highway Code or learning lessons that geese and other wildfowl are in fact, wild. My eight-year-old-self had such an encounter with a swan in a park in Peterborough that left me scarred for many years. The adults who were with me laughed it off and my timidness and tears became the butt of family jokes for decades. What I would have given to have had someone like Fynn in my life…
Such damage also happens in the realms of discipleship. Sadly we do not need to look far in any of our denominations or faiths to find people whose ‘comforting’ hand has hurt and hindered not helped and liberated. Too often we hear horrific tales of physical and spiritual abuse. Too often those abusers have been enabled by others who presume that simply because something is being done in the name of God it must be godly. Today’s Bible reference tells us how God feels about our failings…
What are we to do? Do we close down the big world to our little ones and so stunt their growth in Christ? No, doing so will just become another form of abuse called neglect. It’s a dangerous world (physical and spiritual) out there but it is the only place any of us can grow.
So, just as we teach our little ones the Highway Code and to be careful around geese and other wildfowl we will ensure that our hands are safe ones for them to hold. We will inform ourselves about how to keep them safe. We will do the appropriate training, no matter how irksome or complicated it may be to access. For just as I needed someone’s hand to hold when I was attacked by the swan, so all our younglings need someone to look up to and guide them and keep them safe. We are called to be Jedi Knights watching over and training our young padawans in the ways of righteousness.
PLEASE NOTE: If these words have raised a concern about the safety of someone in your church or yourself, please contact your local Safeguarding Officer as soon as possible. A directory of Church of England Officers can be found here.
Concerns may also be raised with groups such as Childline and in an emergency do not hesitate to contact your local Police by dialling 999.
(Readers from countries other than the United Kingdom will need to find an organisation local to their situation)
To Pray:
Free us, God of mercy,
from all that keeps us from you;
relieve the misery of the anxious and the ashamed
and fill us with the hope of peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Prayer for Psalm 25 – Common Worship)
To Do:
1) Even if you do not work alongside any Children, Young People or Vulnerable Adults in your church community, complete a Basic Safeguarding Awareness Course (a guide to accessing the Church of England one may be found here.) If you have already completed some training consider going on to the next level.
2) Who is your padawan, the person young in the faith who looks to you for guidance? Do one thing to help them grow and take steps into the bigness of God’s love.
Please Note: These reflections are also published on my blog: suffolkvicarhomes.com on Bluesky as @suffolkvicar.bsky.social, and on my public Facebook page Suffolk Vicar – Rev Andrew Dotchin. If you would like them as a daily email please send a request to revdotchin@gmail.com
If you have enjoyed reading them please make a donation to The Clergy Support Trust who provided a generous grant to help me find the space to compose them.
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.
[i] The word million was adequate for most things, billion came in handy on occasions, but if you wanted to use a word for a very, very large number, you just had to invent one. Anna invented one: a squillion.
Suffolk Vicar 