Strange and Wonderful Creature
A Recovered Manuscript by Ethel Barrett
Many parents start the journey of raising a child with a stack of psychology books and the firm belief that parenting is a simple equation: cause plus effect equals a predictable result. This piece explores the humorous and humbling reality that "two and two never did make four" when it involves the unpredictable development of a child. This manuscript bears the marks of a live performance—including handwritten annotations, delivery cues like "harsh whisper," and a rough structural outline on the reverse—it captures the chaotic, messy, and ultimately faithful process of a child becoming the adult they were meant to be. No annotations indicating date written or when and where performed—best guess is early 1950’s
Strange and Wonderful Creature
by Ethel Barrett
Your son is a strange and wonderful creature. First, he’s wonderful - you know that, of course, when they first lay him in your arms. It’s apparent from the beginning that he’s a very unusual child.
Being a very methodical person, you know that if you add two and two, you have to get four. It’s simply a matter of cause and effect, knowledge and application - and so you fortify yourself with books and books on psychology and the care and feeding of children. You’re prepared for anything.
And then he’s strange - for any resemblance between him and the baby in the book, is purely coincidental. Of course, if you could decide what category he fell in, the rest would be easy. There’s only one catch to that. He doesn’t seem to fall into any category at all! By the time you decide he is something no psychologist has ever written anything about - the pre-school years have flown and you’ve taken him by one chubby paw and marched him off to kindergarten hoping his teachers and Sunday School teachers will find out in just what way he’s a genius. They don’t seem to discover it, however, and he, for some reason, persists in not showing it.
Yes, he’s a strange lad.
There is that one wonderful day, when your hopes soar sky-high - the day when you pour over the wordless book together - The gold page - “In My Father’s House are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you” - and the black page “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” - and the red page “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin”.[1] That day when he kneels and gives his heart to the Lord Jesus Christ. And you think that the glory of that day can never fade. But it does - it’s drowned out in the awful business of his growing up.
For an endless number of years, it is impossible for him to do anything right. He is one big noise with an appetite and muddy feet. You give him piano lessons and he plays in the cracks with his elbows.
You teach him scripture, and he says it like - like - Jack Wyrtzen[2] when he’s alone with you, and like the Sphinx when he’s on a platform. And you try to reach his mind.
You teach him the King’s English, and he can collect a vocabulary of forty-nine impossibadrillion words without an “i-n-g” anywhere.
You teach him cleanliness, and his idea of the ultimate in cleanliness is to wash his face on the side the teacher sits, just before his piano lesson.
You teach him manners, and he can’t say “How do you do” without falling over his own feet.
You teach him - but why go on? For years, you try to reach his mind.
And then that memorable day, when he starts out to put a new washer on a dripping faucet and winds up breaking so many things that the water supply for the whole block is turned off before they’re fixed - and you’ve had enough.
“He’s not my son. They switched babies on me in the nursery, that’s what they did.”
But your better judgment wins. And you try to reach his -
HE DOESN’T HAVE A MIND!
(HARSE WHISPER) He doesn’t have a mind. If you could look inside his head, you know it would be full of little pebbles.
But that’s the day the answers start coming from the Christian colleges he’s been writing to, and when you ask him, he says, “Sure, Mom. I’m going to be a minister. Didn’t you know? (PAUSE) AW, Mom, don’t cry. Heeey, where’s you going?”
(YOU) “I’m going to throw out a shelf of books I’ve had hanging around too long. Psychology books.”
And then - at long last - that ordination day when you can’t see him through your tears - but he’s there, tall, incredibly impressive, and his neck is clean!
And you, there, in the audience, live his boyhood again in a few minutes. He was your little boy and now he’s grown and the job is done. No, two and two never did make four, but there was never a dull moment.
You didn’t understand enough, you didn’t laugh enough, you didn’t pray enough - and yet God had been faithful.
Yes - all in all - you got - far more, than you deserved......
© 2026 Barrett Enterprises LLC. All rights reserved. Original text © Ethel Barrett. Reproduced with permission of the Estate of Ethel Barrett.
[1] The Wordless Book: A Christian evangelistic teaching tool that uses colored pages—rather than text—to explain the core tenets of the Gospel. Designed to be understood by children, it allows a storyteller to walk through a narrative of faith using visual cues. In this script, the colors correspond to specific themes: Gold (Heaven), Black (Sin), and Red (the blood of Christ).
[2] Jack Wyrtzen (1913–1996): American evangelist and founder of Word of Life Fellowship. Known for a high-energy, “rapid-fire” speaking style on his radio broadcasts, Wyrtzen was a contemporary of Ethel Barrett. The comparison in the text refers to his characteristically fast-paced delivery.
Was this story written about or for someone in particular?