Greg, an old friend from the art-college library, came by the thrift store yesterday. I showed him my Protector Bear in the alley, and he said,"It's like a Fu Dog! I have one in my garden."
I didn't know, "Fu Dog" is a colloquial English name for Chinese guardian lions––in Chinese they are traditionally called simply shi, meaning lion––like these Qing-era lions in the Forbidden City, "believed to have powerful mythic protective benefits" (per Wikipedia).
I had brought home a plastic toy lion, so I decorated it today. Below: here it is in its apotropaic form.
I added metal bits––tiny pins for eye dots, copper wire hair (and blue synthetic too), and metal-pushpin chest and forehead shields.
Baby Sems Go Out
A couple of the baby sems (the young seminarians who volunteered at the store in January) came by recently, to say good-bye before their summer break.
I was so touched.
One--my favorite--is dropping out, with gratitude for the year, but with surety that God wants him to do something else.
I asked, and he told me that he'd take so many good things from the year---the practice of prayer, fasting from e-media, and "our poverty immersion"--that is, the time he'd spent at the store and their work all year in a nearby Catholic grade school.
It didn't occur to me to show them the Alley Protectors, but making and putting these figures up actually kind of follows on from conversations I had with the baby sems---
especially the question
HOW DO YOU KEEP SHOWING UP?
I tried prayer this Lent, but it was too inward. I already do that.
The outer act of making toys to go out (the toys call it "going out") is much more helpful to me.
Does it help others?
God knows.
I was kinda harsh on yard signs in my earlier post this morning, and I want to say, I know that they too may be part of a person being brave and showing up!
I really don't mean to put those sorts of signs down, overall.
Orange & Bluey went out in a park near the store, in the hollow of a tree at eye level.
I didn't glue them into place, unlike the others. Originally a mariachi band member, Orange is made of something like a big pipe cleaner.
I am hoping someone will take them in.
