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| A member congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America | ||
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June 2003
A few months ago, millions of people felt like they had lost a friend, a teacher, even a father. Because a few months ago Mr. Rogers died. A gentle Presbyterian minister who hosted a remarkable television show for children for 34 years, Mister Rogers influenced countless young lives. An author, who writes about faith and spirituality, recently characterized Mr. Rogers’ show as sacred art, because through television he offered the biblical hospitality that makes pilgrims and strangers welcome. At the heart of his hospitality was the attention he gave to each person and, according to the author, it’s why he won his devoted audience. He won it, she writes, “by breaking the rules of entertainment technology: he bestowed attention rather than grabbing it.” Such sacred hospitality also requires a sense of home and feeling at home in another’s presence, and one of the most enduring images from Mister Rogers’ show was his living room. No contemporary home for him, no cavernous great room, no yawning abyss from conversation pit to cathedral ceiling, but rather a slightly frayed but cozy sitting room where people could be themselves. The other enduring image is Mister Rogers coming into his living room and changing into his sweater and taking off his shoes. It was a gesture of self-emptying humility and welcome, very much along biblical lines. The author goes on to point out that Mister Rogers displayed courtesy rather than folksy familiarity, using titles rather than first names, and keeping his tie on along with his comfortable cardigan — he knew that unlimited kindness expresses itself best through limits and routines. And such courtesy is what makes for a good neighborhood. To live in a neighborhood is to be tumbled together with people we didn’t choose and with whom we might share little. But what makes a neighborhood a good neighborhood is not emotional bonds, but bonds of courtesy — respect and consideration for others. Oddly enough, Mister Rogers showed the same courtesy and attention to machines. He would look with awe on the workings of a crayon factory and give keen attention to how sneakers are made — all the people and machines required. In doing so, he reminded us of the dignity and holiness of human work — or at least the dignity and holiness it should have. But more than anything, Mister Rogers was an endless source of comfort for his young viewers. He gave courteous, loving attention to each person and treated each of them as a marvel of supreme work. You are special, he sang to them, and you can never go down the drain. He saw the inescapable obligation of adults to be keeping children safe in a scary world and helping them understand how special and marvelous they are. In thinking about Mr. Rogers it’s hard not to conclude that not only do we still need such a show for children but we need such a show for adults as well — especially for adults! In our culture today, hostility and suspicion have replaced hospitality and welcome, the word courtesy is almost absent from our language, and giving attention to others — full, open, loving attention — is rare. Getting and grabbing attention seems to be the thing, perhaps because many do not feel very special or of much worth and find little dignity or holiness in their work. We need another Mister Rogers, someone to carry on his ministry of giving hope and life. For that is what he truly gave, I think. Hope — for our own lives, our communities, our world — comes in small, everyday ways. It comes wherever courtesy is shown, wherever we feel at home in another’s presence, wherever respect and consideration is practiced. And whenever we feel the full attention of another, sense that someone has forgotten himself or herself enough to truly pay attention, we do feel special and of worth and filled with life. And it’s catching too — as we are treated in such ways, we have a tendency to treat others the same way. Of course there won’t be another Mister Rogers. But then, perhaps there doesn’t have to be, because what Mr. Rogers did was to follow the model we all of us are called to follow and can follow. In a very real sense, he showed what it means to be Christ to others in our everyday lives: the gentleness and kindness, the loving attention and courteousness, the hospitality and welcome, the presence in which people can be themselves, be at home, and find strength and security. Now I realize that many found Mr. Rogers to be rather hokey and his show painfully simple, if not a bit foolish. But then being something of Christ will always strike people that way. The truth remains, however: if each of us sought to practice such simple, foolish things, sought to be a good neighbor in the fullest sense, more often than not it would be a beautiful day in the neighborhood. God be with you, Jeff
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