“MOTHER,” said a dear little girl one day, “you’ve told me that God is within me like a great Light, and that He is in everyone else, too. Now how can He be in me and you and everyone else all at the same time?”

“Why Colombe!” answered Mother, “Just think for a moment of the finger-game we often play. You know, the one in which we make people out of our fingers by painting faces on the finger-nails, winding cloth about the fingers for clothes, etc? You have often talked to and played with your little finger people for a long time. Now each one looked different, and could move about, but they were, after all, each one a part of YOU, weren’t they?”

“Oh, I see!” answered the little girl. “We are like God’s Fingers, and though we look different and act different we are all part of the same hand—God’s Hand. But, Mother, my fingers do only what I want them to do. Then, if God is so Good and Loving and Powerful as you tell me, why does He make us, a part of Himself, to be sick and unhappy, and often mean and hateful? I never make my finger people do naughty things. Then why should God make His?”

“Well,” said Mother, “the easiest way to explain this to you is by telling you a story about a Fairy and her Fingers.”

“Oh, hurrah! A story!!” shouted Colombe in delight.

ONCE there was a wonderful, beautiful Fairy called Love. Now this Fairy didn’t have a body like ours. Indeed not! Her body was a dazzling white Light that could shine—Oh, so far! Now if you have ever watched the sunlight coming through a window or shining through a peek-hole you will have noticed that it looks just like a long, shiny finger.

Well, the Love Fairy had fingers just like that; long, shiny fingers made out of her light—each one a different color. There was a red finger, a violet finger, a blue finger, a green finger, a yellow finger, an orange finger, and Oh, I can’t begin to tell you the many colored fingers she had! Such beautiful magic fingers! Why, they could even see, hear, smell, feel, taste, and talk, just as she could.

What fun they all had! Love would say, “Red Finger, flash out and touch that ground which we have made.” Then Red Finger would flash way out (like a flashlight) till he touched the ground, and Lo! up would spring some beautiful flower, tree, bush—or whatever Love had thought of and poured her Love into, just as in the dark, when the light from a flashlight falls on anything, there springs into view what seemingly was not there before. For the Love Fairy was very powerful and had only to think of a thing and immediately there it stood all made of light. But, of course, she made only good, happy, beautiful things; for, being Love, she wanted everyone to be happy. Sometimes she would send her Blue Finger to touch and make something she thought of, and sometimes other colored Fingers. However, whatever she touched with her magic Fingers brought joy and happiness to someone or to something.

These Fingers of hers just loved to shoot out to touch things, and watch them change into something beautiful. But one day, while Love was resting, her Fingers began talking to each other about the many wonderful things she could do through them.

“Wouldn’t it be fun if we could make things by our own thoughts like Love does through us?” said Orange Finger.

“Yes it would!” they all agreed, and began to think about it more and more until at last they could think of nothing else, and were no longer the happy, laughing, dancing Fingers of Light they always had been before.

“Whatever is the matter with you, my lovely shiny Fingers?” asked Love one day. “You act so queerly.”

And so they told her that they wanted to make things all by themselves just by thinking and feeling, like she did.

“But why?” asked Love, puzzled. “Don’t you like my thought creations?”

“Oh, my, yes!” they all cried out. “But we would so much rather make something all by ourselves!”

At this Love looked at them sadly and warned them. “Dear little Fingers, you don’t know what you ask. You now know yourself a part of me and of each other and have the joy of my Life and Love flowing through you. If you began to make things ‘all by yourselves,’ as you say, your thoughts would soon be more and more on yourselves and less and less on me and my other Fingers. This would shut off the joyous flow of Love and Life which you have always had—for Love cannot enter a place all clogged up with selfish thoughts. You would be so unhappy that my love makes me wish to refuse such a dangerous gift.”

“But we will be miserable without it” they wailed. “And, Oh, please, dear Love Fairy, we won’t become selfish! We will use it for each other and for good, just like you do.”

Love smiled sorrowfully, for she knew that they had already started to be selfish by wanting to shut her thoughts out and make things with just their own thoughts; but she saw that they could never be happy again until they had been given a chance to learn for themselves, so she said “Very well, little Fingers. Because you can learn in no other way you shall have what you ask for—the gift of creation. I truly hope the lesson will not be too long, too hard, nor too grievous.”

Oh! how happy were the Fingers now, “You darling, darling Fairy! How we love you! You’ll never be sorry you gave us this wonderful gift!” they exclaimed in joy.

— At this point in the story Mother stopped and asked Colombe, “Well, little girl, do you understand what this story is about, so far?”

“Oh, yes, indeed,” answered Colombe in delight. “The Fairy is like God, and her Fingers must be the Part of Him that you call our Higher Selves. I can hardly wait to hear what the shiny Fingers made with their thoughts.”

“Just think about the first part of the story today,” said Mother, “and tomorrow you’ll hear what the little Fingers did with their new gift, and perhaps you will better understand the answer to your question which made me tell the story.”

WITH great joy the little Fingers began making a world for themselves with their thoughts and feelings. It was all sorts of fun. Red Finger said, “Look! My thoughts have made a sky above me, earth beneath me, and air all around me. I see you, too, little Blue Finger. Just see how different my thoughts are making you look—not near so shiny as you did!”

“You too!” laughed Blue Finger. “And all the other Fingers look different. But our thoughts and feelings working together are making a real nice place, aren’t they?”

And so all the little Fingers busily built a world around themselves with their thoughts, which surrounded them just like a big ball of pretty colored clouds, until they could scarcely see their Fairy Mother Love, although they were of course still part of Her Hand. However, they weren’t thinking about her—they were too busy enjoying themselves in their new world. Now they soon began to feel that something was missing and decided that it must be the Light which always came from Love, but which their new world-ball was of course shutting out.

“It’s getting dark. Let’s make a light of our own,” they agreed. So they made a sun, a moon, and many stars. “There! That’s better!” they decided. So they made more and more things in their world and became more and more interested in them.

At first everything they thought of would form itself into a sort of cloud which looked just like their thought-picture. Then if they kept on being interested in it the cloud would become thicker and denser. But to make these thought-cloud-pictures become living things—plants, birds, rocks, etc., they would have to pour some of their own life into them. So when they had made a beautiful thought-garden or bird or world, they would put some very strong feeling into it to make it alive. And the more feeling they would pour into it the stronger and denser it would get, until, at last, they had a world of things very much like ours, except that everything was just the way they wanted it—lovely and enjoyable. Of course it took a long time for a thought to “harden” into a thing, but they were so interested and happy that time passed rapidly.

Finally they became so very interested in their new world of things that they longed to be among them—to touch, and feel, and be a part of them. But of course they couldn’t, for they were still just Fingers of Light, and would naturally go right through anything they made. But they wished so hard to be a part of their new and interesting world that their wishes gradually built for them a body around each Light Finger, which, after much time finally became “hard” enough to feel and move things about without going through them. Their feeling of delight in this new body and world caused both body and world to get still denser and harder (just like zero weather makes water thicker and thicker till it becomes ice), until at last they had bodies much like ours—bodies which their desires had built. Of course, since each little Finger had somewhat different thoughts and feelings, each body was naturally somewhat different from the others.

And so, for a long, long time, these little Fingers of Light all wrapped up in bodies of flesh and bones played joyfully in the beautiful gardens which their thoughts had made.

But one day, while playing, Green Finger fell right on top of Yellow Finger, who had been lying on the ground resting. What a bump his head received—and how he banged Yellow Finger!

“What’s the matter with you, anyway!” shouted Yellow Finger. “Can’t you see where you’re going?”

“Why were you lying right in my road?” yelled Green Finger.

And Oh dear, what horrid thoughts they had about each other. Well, since every thought which they would think real strongly would make something, why naturally such horrid thoughts shaped themselves into thick ugly clouds which hung around the one who had made them, and were certainly unpleasant looking things. But since they were just made they were not very strong yet, and the Fingers did not pay much attention to them.

Well, as time went on and the little Fingers became even more interested in the body-part of themselves and of each other, they scarcely remembered any more that they were all part of one Hand; and each tried to be bigger, better, and smarter than the others. If Blue Finger would make something prettier than the others had, he would start bragging, “See! This is mine. It took a long time to make it so hard and so nice, and it’s lots better than anything you have. You can’t have any of it, either!” Then the others would feel angry, and such angry feelings would pour into the horrid thoughts floating around them, making them stronger and stronger; until one day they became so strong that the Fingers saw them as horrid, howling, snapping animals all about them.

“Oh!” they cried in fright, “Where did they come from? We didn’t make them!” For they had forgotten that every thought and feeling which they would make something, even if they couldn’t see it right away. And so each one blamed the others, and their fear poured still more life into the horrid creatures their thoughts had made. Their tiny mean little thoughts soon buzzed about them as annoying gnats and mosquitoes, and as other sorts of insects which began to destroy their lovely garden.

But worst of all, since the body of each little Finger was made from his real thoughts and feelings, they began to have trouble with these bodies. For the horrid thoughts and feelings made trouble in the body, just as they were doing in the Garden.

All of these sad happenings to her Fingerpeople were closely watched by Love, who was very sorry to see them so unhappy, and she tried to send more of her Light to them so that they would see what they were doing and where their real trouble was.

“Little Fingerines,” she called to them. “Stop blaming and hating each other. Those things which are worrying you are only your own wrong thoughts and feelings reflected back to you as though by a mirror. Stop pouring life into them by your hate and mean feelings. Let My Love-light enter your world once more and they will all melt away like snow in the warm sunlight.”

But the Fingerpeople were too thickly wrapped up in their own thought-world to even hear her. They had grown to fear everything, even each other, and could think only of their own small self and how to get everything they could for it. In fact they were so busy fighting the wild animals their thoughts had made that they had little time or energy left for making things to enjoy as they once had done. Gradually their bodies became so worn away by the attacks of their wrong thinking and feeling that they were no longer of any use to them.

“Oh! What will we do?” they cried in despair. “Our bodies hurt so and are all going to pieces. And it took so very much time to make them so nice and hard and big! We simply can’t be without bodies for such a long time again (for they were still in love with their poor foolish bodies).

Red Finger’s body went first and just fell down useless one day, leaving him again Love’s Finger of Light, freed from that body-prison his thoughts had built. He should have been delighted, but was he? No! He was still so interested in the world he had made and was so much in the habit of being in a hard body-prison that he was miserable, and soon began making for himself a tiny new simple little body which would not take so long to make as the big intricate body he had left. “I will get into it right away and make it grow bigger and more the way I want it,” he thought.

Now when Blue Finger, Green Finger, Orange Finger, and all the other Fingers saw Red Finger’s body fall over useless, they grew frightened. They talked to it and shook it, and tried to make it move—but of course it just lay there. You see they had become so accustomed to looking at things that they couldn’t even see the real Red Finger (made of Love’s Light) leave the body—and they actually thought that that useless wornout body was Red Finger himself! And so they sadly said that Red Finger was dead!

Soon Red Finger’s new little baby-body was finished, and when he entered into it, it began to cry. And the other Fingers said that a new baby was born. Of course they fed it and cared for it, because it was so cute and helpless—but they never even dreamed that it was Red Finger.

What a hard time Red Finger had at first! The baby-body was so tiny and so helpless that he could hardly do anything with it, and all the ugly thoughts he still had with him came to trouble the tiny body. In time he became used to such a cramped body, however, and, as the body grew larger and more able to do what he wished it to, his interest in it caused him again to forget who he was and to think he was just a body.

After a while the other Fingers lost their old bodies, too, and for the same reason had to do as Red Finger did—come back in a little new baby-body. These new bodies also in time would grow large and full of vigor, then become old and useless.

And so the Fingers were born into body after body, until at last they had completely forgotten all the important things about their Fairy Mother Love and her Light within them they had once known—and no longer even realized that their thoughts and feelings were the cause of all their joy or grief. Some said their misfortunes were accidents, while others said, “No! a great Being made us and is punishing us for not doing what he wanted us to.” Sometimes, however, they would be still and quiet, and without knowing it, would allow some of Love’s Light to penetrate through into their minds and lives. Then, when the lovely thoughts and feelings caused by Love’s Light made nice happy things happen, some would say, “It’s just luck.” Others would be sure that the Great Being was pleased with something they had done and was rewarding them.

And never did it occur to them that THEIR OWN THOUGHTS were causing everything good or bad!

“Oh, Mother,” cried Colombe, “I’m never going to blame other people for anything again. I’m going to try to let only nice, loving thoughts in. And, Mother, have I honestly lived on this earth many, many times, and must I keep on being born again in baby bodies?”

“We all have been here many, many times, Dear,” answered Mother. “If not, then why would there be such a difference in small children. God is just, good, and loving, you know; and would never give one of his children a fine healthy body, and another a sickly, crippled one. And no doubt you will be born again into many new little bodies.”

“Why, Mother? If I think only good thoughts and know myself as part of God again, why would I have to be born again in another body?”

“Well, Colombe,” smiled Mother, “the end of our fairy story will explain that quite clearly; and since it is not very long I will tell it to you now.”

BLUE FINGER had made for himself so many baby bodies, and had lived in them while they grew first big and strong, then wornout and useless, so very many times, that at last he began to lose his interest in this world of things his thoughts had made, and he began to wish for something better. As soon as he really in his heart longed for better, finer things, this feeling opened up a tiny little channel through which the Love Fairy could send her Light and softly speak to Him.

“Don’t you remember me?” She would ask. “And how happy you were before you forgot me? You are still a part of me, and of all those other unhappy creatures. Stop thinking of yourself and your unhappiness and instead, love and help them, and you will open wide the way back to me.”

At first Blue Finger could scarcely understand Love’s words, because he wasn’t accustomed to listening inwardly, but he felt much better and more rested. Therefore he spent more and more time turning his thoughts and attention within himself, until he began to hear her quiet voice and to recognize it as the kind and loving thoughts in his mind. What a difference that made in his feelings to his fellow-creatures! He began to feel sorry for them and tried to help them as he realized that they, too, were a part of the wonderful Love Fairy who was now beginning to claim all of his heart’s and mind’s interest.

And of course, as he became more and more interested in Love, his thoughts drew him closer and closer to her and to every part of her—even to those of her other Fingers who had ugly mean bodies. And he began to realize that his body and world were not real at all, but merely the result of his own thoughts. How terrible he felt when he realized that his mean thoughts had helped to make all the other Fingers more miserable and unhappy, because they had allowed such mean thoughts to come into their thought-world.

“I’ll never think another mean, hateful, destructive thought!” he vowed. “And I will never let anyone else’s unhappy thoughts in. I will think only such loving thoughts about everyone and everything as my darling Love Fairy would think—no matter how horrid things LOOK to me; because I now know that it’s just my thoughts that make them look that way.”

And so he began to think good, loving, beautiful thoughts, instead of his old sickly, unhappy thoughts. And into these thoughts he poured all of the Love which the Fairy could now send to him. Of course such thoughts and feelings soon made for him a fine strong, healthy body, and so much happiness that people began to wonder how he came to be so “lucky.” Most of them simply wouldn’t believe him when he tried to tell them that it was all due to a change of his thoughts and feelings; but more and more of them came to him for help and advice.

Finally, one day Blue Finger sat down quietly and said, “Darling Love Fairy, I no longer want to make or do things all by myself as I once did. All I want is to have you move me and let your wonderful Thoughts and feelings work through me as they once did; so that I can really help these other poor little Fingers and we can all again know and FEEL ourselves to be a part of You. There is no other happiness.”

And so Blue Finger at last was truly happy again, and had the constant joy of feeling Love working through him and of watching the happiness this brought to others. He didn’t stop living in a body, though, because Love wanted him where the other Fingers could see him, so that he could better show them how to find their way back to her. Some listened and learned very fast to open a channel to Love; but others would not listen to anything Blue Finger would tell them, for they were still very interested in their body and world. Love was not worried, however, because she knew that some day, they too, would become tired of the mess they had made, and come back to her, even as had Blue Finger.