“’Cause I believed every word you said,
Mister Rogers, or can I call you Fred?
Mister Rogers, I could use a friend…
I’m sure you don’t have much time,
But heroes are hard to find.
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?”
Mark Robertson, “Every Word You Said”
When Fred Rogers died in 2003, NBC news reporter Bob Faw, observed, “The real Mister Rogers never preached, never even mentioned God on his show…He never had to.” For over 30 years, Mister Rogers opened his front door, walked into our living rooms, slipped on comfy shoes, a favorite sweater, and taught spiritual principles like forgiveness and kindness and respect. He wasn’t loud or flashy. As an ordained Presbyterian minister, he was faithful to his calling. He’s my kind of televangelist.
When we gathered around him, he reminded us that it takes a lot of slow to grow, that silence is valuable, that feelings are okay, and that everyone in the world is special and unique. One time he took us with him on a tour of a pretzel factory. There we learned that, many years ago, monks gave children pretzels as treats for remembering to say their prayers. The pretzel dough was rolled into strips and crossed, to symbolize a child’s arms folded in prayer, and the three holes in the pretzel represented the Trinity.
In her book, The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers, Amy Hollingsworth recalls the last question she asked Mister Rogers, “If you had one final broadcast, one final opportunity to address your television neighbors, and you could tell them the single most important lesson of your life, what would you say?”
He paused briefly, then slowly said, “Well, I would want those who were listening somehow to know that they had unique value, that there isn’t anybody in the whole world exactly like them and that there never has been and never will be. And that they are loved by the Person who created them, in a unique way. If they could know that and really know it and have that behind their eyes, they could look with those eyes on their neighbor and realize, ‘My neighbor has unique value, too; there’s never been anybody in the whole world like my neighbor, and there never will be.’ If they could value that person—if they could love that person—in ways that we know that the Eternal loves us, then I would be very grateful.”
May we, like Mister Rogers, truly believe that loving your neighbor as yourself makes a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
Dennis Lynn
Redwood Church
