Tuesday - September 13, 2022

WORDS OF HOPE

Sometimes the words of wisdom that we need to hear or the lessons that we most need to learn come to us from unexpected places. For me, children’ s literature is one such place. Many of us are familiar with the works of the monumental British writer Roald Dahl. Dahl is most known for his children’s books Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, The BFG, and Matilda.  Though I am a fan of most of Dahl’s writing, it is one of his lesser-known children’s books, The Magic Finger, that is my favorite. In this story, when a little girl gets angry, her finger starts to tingle and turn red. When she points it at the source of her anger, magic starts to happen. There is certainly much room for misuse of “power” in this scenario, but Dahl does not take the story in that direction. Rather, he teaches empathy by using the little girl’s magic finger to literally put characters in the shoes of others.

The little girl first uses her magic finger to turn her teacher into a cat after the teacher calls the girl stupid for misspelling the word cat. With a pointing of the red and tingling magic finger, right in front of the eyes of an entire class, the teacher begins to grow whiskers, ears, and a bushy cat tail. Suddenly, this educator receives a firsthand education on what it feels like to be laughed at by an entire room of students.

In the second incident in The Magic Finger, the little girl is upset by the family next door. A father and his two sons are avid hunters. After seeing them come home with ducks and a deer that they had shot, she is filled with anger and points her magic finger at them. The entire family of four, even the mom who was not a hunter, wakes up the next day to discover that not only have they shrunk, but their arms have been replaced by wings. And four ducks who had circled them the day before as they returned from their hunting expedition were now giant.

At first the children and parents were excited by the fact that they could fly. While they were out soaring in the sky, the other ducks took over the family’s home and they now had no place to live. They needed to build a nest. After working hard gathering sticks, leaves, and feathers for a cozy nest for four at the top of a tree, wind and rain came and the family quickly realized how scary it was to live outside in the elements. They also discovered how difficult it was to find food and eat with no hands. As if all of this wasn’t bad enough, the next morning they awoke to see the four giant ducks on the ground below their nest, three of them pointing shotguns up into the nest. The mom cried down, “You can’t shoot my children!” The giant duck responded with, “Why not? Your family shot six of mine yesterday.” With that, the father started bargaining with the ducks, begging them not to shoot and promising never again to hunt. His word was good enough for the giant ducks. The family came down from the tree, grew back to their normal size and their wings disappeared and their arms returned. The giant ducks also shrunk to normal duck size and returned to their familiar home back in nature. Not only did the human family destroy their guns, they also changed their name from The Gregg family to the Egg family to show respect for and solidarity with the ducks.

On the surface, The Magic Finger may be about guns, but to me it is about so much more. It’s about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes. It’s about seeing and feeling life from a different perspective. It’s about doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. It is about empathy. What would the world be like if we had a magic finger that we could point at the rich and they would become poor; or, at the privileged and they would become marginalized? What would the world be like if people had to walk in the shoes of others, even if for only a short time? The idealist in me likes to think that our world would become a more understanding, compassionate, empathetic, and loving place. Since none of us has a magic finger to point at those who make us long for justice, the best we can do is turn our loving hearts toward those that anger us and hope that by experiencing our loving ways toward them, they will in turn change and pass that love on to all those whom they encounter.  This is not magic; it is the real power of God’s infinite love.

A PRAYER

Loving God who has the power to change hearts and mend ways, help me never to forget that this earth is shared space and that everything I do, big and small, has an impact on others. Help me to greet those with whom I disagree with empathy and a heart full of real and life-changing love. Amen

DEVOTION AUTHOR



Kris Baker

Order of St. Francis and St. Clare