Teddy Bear is child therapist wrapped in fur

The voice on Maggie Moschell's answering machine sounded a wee bit like Mrs. Doubtfire.

''I'm ringing you up from Dunblane Primary School,'' the woman said in a gentle Scottish brogue. ''We'd like to have the bears so the children could make use of them in their classes.''

It was the call Mrs. Moschell, of Montgomery, had awaited for six weeks.

In mid-April, after reading about the massacre of 16 kindergartners at the Scottish elementary school, she sent off an offer that has become her global response to children in pain.

Spinoza, a fat, furry bear who comforts the most broken-hearted and listens very well.

He looks like a toy. He hugs like a toy. But Spinoza is in fact a counselor, helping children deal with friendship, loneliness, anger and sorrow via a small tape recorder in his tummy.

''If you're afraid, you can hold onto me. Afraid is the normal thing to be,'' he sings.

He is available for the dark of the night and the sad of the day. He goes anywhere - bus rides, hospital rooms, funerals. Small hearts, unable to let big people into their hurts, can tell Spinoza anything.

Mrs. Moschell, a former art teacher who paints toy prototypes for a living, saw the bear in a toy shop six years ago and bought him for her daughters. She liked the simple messages he shared on self-acceptance, confidence and relaxation. ''Let go of the day,'' he says. ''Life is too serious to be taken so seriously.''

Then Maggie Moschell, painter of toys, lover of children, read about a New Jersey 5-year-old whose mother locked her in the trunk of the car every weekend when she went to work. ''That child needs Spinoza,'' she thought.

It soon became a refrain.

Working with her church and Spinoza's parent company, Mrs. Moschell began routing bears to Fernside Center for Grieving Children, inner-city schools, an Alabama church that was destroyed by a tornado two years ago.

Spinoza went off to terminally ill children, and to Chance Howell, the Amelia 5-year-old who had watched his mother beat his brother Jerry to death last year. Mrs. Moschell can't confirm it, but Spinoza matches a description of the bear Chance clutched as he took the witness stand to testify against his mother.

Mrs. Moschell hopes it is true. Spinoza comforts when no one else can.

''You can't go and hug these kids, but you can send Spinoza and he can hug them for you,'' she says.

Moschell needs help

The bear, which comes with its own tape recorder and nine tapes, isn't cheap. It costs $130. It is made for rugged times, when tears spill out and anger boils over. It is a therapy session, wrapped in fur.

But Spinoza's healing powers go beyond the child who receives him. Bought by strangers, he is a link between what is big, safe and confident in the world and what is small, afraid and grieving.

Spinoza says that human beings are better than their most shameful moments.

Maggie Moschell believes that. While others sit back in despair, she calls Scotland, Alabama, New Jersey. She tracks down social workers, hospital staff, school counselors. She keeps lists of children in need and adults who will support them.

She is a gentle, sensitive mom and source of good in the world.

If you know children who should receive a bear, write to Maggie Moschell, 10050 Montgomery Road, Box 232, Cincinnati 45242.

If you want to help send Spinozas to Scotland, send your contribution to Spinoza's Buddy Bear Project, 245 E. 6th St., St. Paul, Minn. 55101-1940, with a note that it is ''For Scotland Bears.'' You are simply buying a toy from a manufacturer, so it is not a tax-deductible donation.

But it is an act of kindness and restoration. And those come with their own special rewards.

Krista Ramsey's column appears in The Enquirer on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati 45202 or fax at 768-8340.

Published June 15, 1996.