The Velveteen Rabbit

A relevant church needs to 'get real' - by which I mean that it needs to have discovered the things that really matter - and that doesn't necessarily mean the avoidance of chaos and messiness. There's a little section in Margery Williams' story "The Velveteen Rabbit" which stresses the value of a different perspective and asks important questions about reality. The rabbit, which is at the centre of the story, is discussing with the skin horse the question of the things that really matter, what it is that is real. And they have this conversation: "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a srick-out handle?" "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?" "It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."