The Blessing of the Bears
Apr. 18th, 2019 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baratronWhen I am in Rochester with Grant, we go to Community Christian Church which is, in my words, a "hippy church". The first thing you see when you enter the building is a sign saying "Refugees Welcome", and they actually mean it. The minister is a gay man married to his husband, some of the lay people who help with the services are visibly queer, and it's genuinely welcoming. Even though I'm not a Christian, I still feel more at home there than in the UU church we went to once, where people came up to us afterwards and enquired as to whether the service was the strangest thing we'd ever been to. The idea that we might be Unitarians already didn't seem to occur to anyone. (There is a second UU church in Rochester, and I might try it sometime, but I don't feel any particular need to.)
Some people from the church work for a charity which helps children who may have been abused (TW: site talks about child abuse). When they come for assessment, they can choose a plush friend to help them through the process. Apparently they get through 4 to 6 plushies per day, which is a lot of new referrals. One of these people, Bob, died recently and in his honour, the church decided to collect Bears for Bivona because it was alliterative.
When we arrived and saw a giant box of bears (and other soft toys), I decided to go through the box and hug them all. So I did so after the service. When people asked what I was doing, I explained that you can't just buy a teddy bear from a shop, stick it in a collection box, and expect it to be able to help a hurt child. You have to give it some love first. And Rev Steven considered this and decided to put the teddy bears out in church the following week.
(click through for bigger version)
So the bears sat through the church service and were filled with the love of the congregation. They were pointed out during the "share with children" part of the service and each child went to hug one of them. Then the bears were blessed so that they could bring joy to their new owners. If you get the impression that this is not exactly a standard, mainstream sort of church - you'd be right!
Also the sermon featured Banksy art. (Did you realise that Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian migrant?)
We bought six BRUNBJÖRNs from IKEA. I don't know where, other than IKEA, you would find new teddy bears for $5 which were that well-made. We looked in Walmart and their $5 bears were sad, with visible glue and bad stitching. I don't think they would be very good at protecting sad children because they were already sad themselves.
When we bought the bears, we weren't sure whether the charity specifically asked for bears, or if they were collecting bears because it was the dead man's favourite animal. Some people were complaining that others had put animals other than bears into the bear collection. I spoke to Bob's widow later and she said she didn't mind at all what kind of soft toys they were, as long as they were new and clean. Next time I will check to see whether alligators are acceptable. I think that if I was an abused child, I might want a fierce animal to scare the bad people away. And Al has brought a great deal of affection to Shifty, who had a very difficult childhood because of his undiagnosed autism and depression.
It's true that bears can be fierce - but I'm not so sure about pink raspberry-scented and blue blueberry-scented bears.
Some people from the church work for a charity which helps children who may have been abused (TW: site talks about child abuse). When they come for assessment, they can choose a plush friend to help them through the process. Apparently they get through 4 to 6 plushies per day, which is a lot of new referrals. One of these people, Bob, died recently and in his honour, the church decided to collect Bears for Bivona because it was alliterative.
When we arrived and saw a giant box of bears (and other soft toys), I decided to go through the box and hug them all. So I did so after the service. When people asked what I was doing, I explained that you can't just buy a teddy bear from a shop, stick it in a collection box, and expect it to be able to help a hurt child. You have to give it some love first. And Rev Steven considered this and decided to put the teddy bears out in church the following week.
(click through for bigger version)
So the bears sat through the church service and were filled with the love of the congregation. They were pointed out during the "share with children" part of the service and each child went to hug one of them. Then the bears were blessed so that they could bring joy to their new owners. If you get the impression that this is not exactly a standard, mainstream sort of church - you'd be right!
Also the sermon featured Banksy art. (Did you realise that Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian migrant?)
We bought six BRUNBJÖRNs from IKEA. I don't know where, other than IKEA, you would find new teddy bears for $5 which were that well-made. We looked in Walmart and their $5 bears were sad, with visible glue and bad stitching. I don't think they would be very good at protecting sad children because they were already sad themselves.
When we bought the bears, we weren't sure whether the charity specifically asked for bears, or if they were collecting bears because it was the dead man's favourite animal. Some people were complaining that others had put animals other than bears into the bear collection. I spoke to Bob's widow later and she said she didn't mind at all what kind of soft toys they were, as long as they were new and clean. Next time I will check to see whether alligators are acceptable. I think that if I was an abused child, I might want a fierce animal to scare the bad people away. And Al has brought a great deal of affection to Shifty, who had a very difficult childhood because of his undiagnosed autism and depression.
It's true that bears can be fierce - but I'm not so sure about pink raspberry-scented and blue blueberry-scented bears.
no subject
Date: 2019-04-18 09:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-18 10:23 pm (UTC)Like the cute harmlessest looking Bunnys is the most bitey and fierce but like humans like underestimate them becos they think they are like sweet. So like maybe stuffy bears work the same?
The church bear-ing is very Cool!
no subject
Date: 2019-04-19 05:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-19 08:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-18 11:17 pm (UTC)