Finding our Middle – 40 Days with Anna

Day 21 – Friday after 3rd Sunday of Lent 

To Read:

Anna’s other major discovery of that summer grew into a very complex activity, for our house suddenly blossomed with little blue notebooks and slips of paper.  When confronted with something new, Anna would accost the nearest passer-by, and hold out notebook and pencil, with a ‘Please write that down big, please’? 

This request to ‘write it down big’ often produced a somewhat startled reaction.  Anna’s presentation on these occasions was like a stick of dynamite with a very, very short fuse and it frightened some people.  

To be confronted by a red-headed five-year-old kid, to have a notebook and pencil thrust into your hand and to be requested to ‘write it down big’ was for a lot of people unnerving to say the least.  People shied away with that kind of look;  they replied with ‘Buzz off, kid’, ‘Don’t bother me, kid’, but Anna expected this sort of thing and pressed on regardless.  Anna’s ship of discovery was now fully under way.  True, it might leak a bit here and there and the seas of knowledge could become a little rough at times but there was no turning back.  There were things to be discovered and Anna meant to discover them.

From the Scriptures:

But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me;
    my Lord has forgotten me.’
¹⁵ Can a woman forget her nursing child
    or show no compassion for the child of her womb?
Even these might forget,
    yet I will not forget you.
¹⁶ See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands;
    your walls are continually before me.    (Isaiah 49v14-16)

To Reflect:

For someone who aims to live a life of ‘simplicity and joyful obedience’ after the example of Francis of Assisi, I find that I have a heck of a lot of ‘stuff’, especially tech and electronic goods, littering my life.  I have regular discussions with myself to justify how having the latest tech does in fact mean I have a simpler life with less clutter;  my iPhone replaces a whole rucksack of books – Bible, Prayer Book, Lectionary, Diary and devotional reading – that I used to have to lug around.  Surely this is being environmentally friendly…?  I tell myself that Maximillian Kolbe, Franciscan and Martyr of Auschwitz, was a pioneer in introducing the printing press and even Amateur Radio to the Religious Life, so I’m only following his good example…   And Mister God looks at me sideways and says ‘seriously, Andrew?’  Currently negotiations between myself and the One who knows me as well as Loves me Best are at the stage of my promising only to upgrade any tech to the next to next brightest and best, and that only after reductions due to newer models being available.

Why am I telling this tale, you may be asking?  Well, even though I am a tech junkie there is one thing in my life that still requires pen and paper and the opportunity to ‘write it down big’.  For nearly 50 years I have tried to keep up the practice of writing a spiritual journal.  A place where I can stop and put down on paper what has been happening in my life – my failings and joys – what is going to happen in my life – my hopes and fears – and, most important where I am in the here and now.

Me being me I have tried to keep this journal in many ways.  Collecting postcards, using a Dictaphone, a page-a-day diary, a PDA or an iPad, but nothing works quite so well as a Hard back A5 notebook with its own special pen.

When I have a piece of paper to write down my musings I can ‘write it down big’.  This is not about the size of my scrawlings, though occasionally a few words can be used to fill a whole page, but more that the journal gives me the space to write about the big things of life.  Sometimes it’s a hurried scribble, occasionally (very occasionally!) perfect Copperplate.  Sometimes tiny words squeezed into columns.  Very occasionally it’s a piece of poetry in perfect rhyme and metre.  However and whatever I write, having the space to do so helps me put down the big things in life about which I need to reflect.  Always remembering that a journal works twice, first when we write things down and then when we re-read our words at a later time.

When I do it that way the really important things, the big things, find the place in my heart where they need to be and, with Anna, I learn to discover more who I am and learn even more about how big Mister God is…

And Finally…

If you want to start keeping a Spiritual Journal regularly there is a very short guide here.  There are many other resources available to help people journey with a journal so please do not feel that one way or style is best.  The best way is the way that works for you.

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.