After years and years I found it. It is hard for me to believe I have it even now, although it is on the Kensington stand next to my computer screen. It was the first book I ever ordered through those Scholastic book orders the kids still get. I was in Nora Ferguson’s second grade class, and the first thrill of catalogue shopping multiplied by the first thrill of book buying was almost more than a 7 year old could take without hyper-ventilating.I ordered three:
one I don’t quite remember about a horse that thwarted a stage-coach robbery, a book version of the poem “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" (a masterpiece), and the one I really wanted - Curious George Rides a Bike. Mrs. Ferguson read to us often from H.A. Rey’s books about the inquisitive primate, and his friend, the nameless “Man in the Big Yellow Hat.” This was my favorite, and after years of it being lost, and looking for it in used book shops, there it was on the 25 cent shelf at the Central Library’s used book sale.
Back then it was just a great story about a little monkey who, much like a little boy, kept getting into trouble out of sheer curiosity. It also taught you how to make a boat that would really float by folding up a newspaper. But now I think it, like most other great children’s books, is about much more. George is a monkey from the jungle who attaches himself to The Man in the Big Yellow Hat. The man takes George home, and George lives in the Man’s house like he is his child. The plot of the Curious George books revolve around George receiving some gift or opportunity from the Man, which he neglects or misuses because of his curiosity, and so gets into trouble. In the end the Man in the Big Yellow Hat appears like a Deus Ex Machina, and rescues George. This is possible because George is so in-over-his-head he readily accepts his rescue. George doesn’t run from his friend. When George is safe at home with the Man in the Big Yellow Hat, the book comes to an end.
I hope you don’t think I’m silly when I say I think these are books about us and God. I am not arguing that H.A. Rey intended to write books about us and God, but I do believe that “every good and perfect gift is from above” (James 1.17) and that every good thing we do, from writing a good book, to building a book case, to raising a garden has to do with our connection to God. We are made in God’s image, but are not made of God-stuff. We are made of dirt (Genesis 2.7). We are infinitely less like God than a monkey is like a man. God welcomes us into his family anyway, making us his actual children through his own blood. He continually gives us gifts we neglect or abuse through our exercise of free will. And, if we are willing, he is always there to rescue us, and like that little monkey (or the prodigal son), receive us back home.
Back in second grade I got my first really hard Bible Class teacher, Ada Lee McCoy, who made us memorize the 12 apostles, the 12 tribes, and the books of the Bible. Her memory verses were challenging as well. I felt confident when she announced our first memory verse would be John 3.16. Then she said, “through verse 18.” Learning those two extra verses was great. I’ll never forget the pleasure of discovery enjoyed upon understanding the logic which followed the easy verse I already knew so well. Verse 17 says Jesus didn’t come here to hurt anyone, but to save them. Verse 18 says that we are hurt because of the choices WE make, not because of anything Jesus does to us.
Now I understand that the logic of John 3.17-18 is built upon something humanly illogical – something as crazy as letting a monkey have free reign in your house, and giving him a bicycle. John 3.16 tells us that God loves us so much that he gave us Jesus. Now, as then, I too often accept this as a given, as the most natural of things, and not the true challenge of faith. That God is able to save is not hard to believe. If He is God, He is, by definition, able. But that God would be willing, even eager to save us; knowing who we are, knowing who I am; that is the chasm crossed not by reason, but by faith. God loves me. He says it is so, and although I do not understand, I believe, expect rescue, and to be safe at home.
