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Buy online, get it delivered to you. 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.840 It's car buying reimagined Carmacks available within a sixty mile 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.360 radius of select stores. See carmacks dot com for details. 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:22.720 Some restrictions apply. Why does it have to get dark? 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:32.000 Why won't the day always day? Let's say goodbye to 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:44.399 the night time, good bye. Let's send the dark time away. Someday, Oh, 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:53.640 someday I'll know what to say. Someday, Oh, someday I'll 0:01:53.680 --> 0:02:04.800 not have to say? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:13.360 Why wonder why why why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:26.560 why why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? 0:02:28.000 --> 0:02:31.880 Do you ask a lot of why questions? I know 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:37.080 I always did when I was a little I still do. 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:45.200 Mm hmm. Bad stuff happens, and for a lot of us, 0:02:45.480 --> 0:02:49.720 our first response is why why is this happening to me? 0:02:51.480 --> 0:02:54.680 Fred Rogers sang songs like this one to show kids 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:58.079 it's okay to ask the question, But in his own 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:02.440 life and in his show, he turned why into how 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:07.000 how to respond? How to make someone else's life better. 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.400 How to be good in a world filled with bad. 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.519 I'm Carvil Wallace and this is Finding Fred, a podcast 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.680 about Fred Rogers from I Heart Media and Fatherly in 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:30.560 partnership with Transmitter Media. Last episode, we talked about the 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:33.920 famous scene in Mr Rogers Neighborhood in which Fred washes 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:38.480 Francois Clement's feet. It was politically charged, a white man 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.560 sharing a swimming pool with a black man, but the 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:45.760 scene was also a blatant recreation of a Bible story 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:51.160 from the Gospel of John. In the story, Jesus washes 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:55.120 the feet of his followers, the people who are supposedly 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:59.880 less powerful, less important than himself. The moral is that 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:04.400 great leaders are first and foremost great servants, that we 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:09.560 can and maybe should, serve one another. But for all 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:13.120 the biblically evocative nature of the footpath scene, which most 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:22.320 striking is what Fred Rogers doesn't say God Fred was 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:25.800 an ordained Presbyterian minister, though you wouldn't even know it 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:29.440 from watching his program, This scene with Officer Clement is 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.000 about as close as he ever came to telling a 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:39.800 Bible story in the neighborhood. Here's a question, when I 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:45.479 say the word religion, What is your response comfort or 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:49.480 does your guard go up? For me? I don't have 0:04:49.560 --> 0:04:51.640 much of a reaction to it at all. It was 0:04:51.680 --> 0:04:54.720 not forced on me in any uncomfortable way. The Bible 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:57.080 camps and churches I went to were, in my mind, 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:04.880 sometimes boring, sometimes interesting, but large lee inconsequential. Although I 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.520 was deathly afraid of Satan and the Book of Revelations 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.360 and the Second Coming. And when I thought about these 0:05:11.360 --> 0:05:13.880 things as a kid, my mouth would go dry, and 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.719 my stomach would feel like it was filled with hot lead, 0:05:16.920 --> 0:05:20.880 and I would lay awake in bed just terrified. So 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:27.600 maybe it was a big deal. What about you? Where 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:32.560 does your response to religion live in your heart, in 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:38.279 your brain, in the pit of your stomach? What do 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:42.240 you think religion is for? Oh boy, that's that's a 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:45.359 bit of a loaded question, especially in in the world 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:49.240 we live in today. Lisa Dormeyer was an intern on Mr. 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:53.000 Rogers neighborhood. She later attended seminary and was a chaplain 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:55.960 of the children's hospital. Today, she helps run a senior 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:59.120 care facility just outside of Pittsburgh, not far from where 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:02.040 Fred Rogers grew up. Here in western Pennsylvania. We have 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:06.320 a lot of Scottish and German influence, and that's my ancestry, 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:11.560 which is not very affectionate or even affirming. This was 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:15.839 the same background Fred Rogers came from. People men especially 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:21.360 were stern, stolid, maybe even a little cold, and these sturdy, 0:06:21.400 --> 0:06:26.599 old Scottish immigrants were Presbyterians. It's a Protestant Christian tradition 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.599 that is older than the founding of this country. In fact, 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:33.480 there were so many Presbyterians involved in writing the Declaration 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:35.840 of Independence and early governance that a lot of our 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.799 United States government structures are similar to the Presbyterian tradition 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:45.720 of election and general assembly bodies that come together as 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:48.160 as a voice. We don't have bishops, we don't have 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:52.440 a pope um our elected leadership changes on a regular 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:58.160 basis um, so that's kind of our structure. Theologically, were Calvinists, 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:01.960 and so we believe that you're unable to save ourselves. 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:04.800 We are fully reliant on the grace of God to 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:10.440 save us. And that to me has always been that's 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:13.320 the gift of being a Presbyterian, is that belief that 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:15.840 in our brokenness God enters the world to love and 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:20.280 claim us as we are. We're broken already and God 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:24.560 loves us just the way we are. My mother and 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:30.200 dad were both on boards of our church. I remember 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:37.640 early on being very, very taken with the kinds of 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:43.400 things that the ministers were talking about. Fred sat for 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:47.600 a four and a half hour retrospective interview, and rather 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.640 than talk explicitly about his beliefs, he talked about the 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.560 ways in which, growing up he saw faith tangibly at 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:59.080 work in the world, like his industrialist father's philanthropy and 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.920 his mother's service work. I think she had something like 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:09.480 twenty five thousand volunteer hours at the hospital. She loved 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:13.360 being a narciss aid, and during the Second World War 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:20.800 she was in charge of making surgical dressings for the troops. 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.920 And I remember as a little boy going down and 0:08:25.960 --> 0:08:31.640 seeing the people folding these gauze squares, you know, and 0:08:31.720 --> 0:08:35.880 then they would ship them off. I mean, what better 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.959 metaphor for binding up the brokenness of the world than 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:49.240 literally making gauze bandages. M Fred Rogers grew up in 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:53.200 the Trobe, Pennsylvania, a small but active industrial town just 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:57.199 outside of Pittsburgh, and it's heyday there were trolley cars billowing, 0:08:57.240 --> 0:09:01.200 smokestacks it's where the banana split was invented. But Fred 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:03.640 grew up in the middle of the Great Depression. The 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:07.319 Tropes population was mostly blue collar people working in factories, 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.360 and pretty much everyone was struggling to make ends meet, 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:16.160 pretty much everyone except the Rogers family. They came from 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:19.520 old banking and industry money. Both of his parents were 0:09:19.559 --> 0:09:24.440 extraordinarily giving, helped all hundreds and hundreds of people and 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:28.800 families in Latrobe. They gave away a lot of their 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:32.400 money to to other people who needed it. Maxwell King 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:35.640 is Fred's biographer. The message he got from watching his 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:41.679 parents was caring and being neighborly, and being concerned and 0:09:41.760 --> 0:09:44.920 being considerate. They had a lot of privilege, and I 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:47.200 think that that may be one of the reasons that 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.920 Fred felt like an outlier. He was very shy as 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:55.120 a little boy. He was introverted, He was lonely. The 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:59.280 family had a limousine drive him to elementary school every day. 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:03.040 Can you imagine that? Can you imagine? You might just 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.520 get teased a little bit about that. Some kids weren't 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:08.800 allowed to come over to Fred's house because their parents 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:13.840 worried their clothes weren't nice enough. Fred was lonely, a quiet, 0:10:14.160 --> 0:10:17.280 chubby kid who suffered from childhood asthma. He was self 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:20.720 conscious and he was insecure. Kids at school called him 0:10:20.720 --> 0:10:26.160 fat Freddy. One day, his chauffeur didn't show up to 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:29.959 drive him home from school, kids chased him down the street, 0:10:30.200 --> 0:10:33.840 you know, shouting out, we're gonna get you, Fat Freddy. 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:36.720 And he was very traumatized by the experience, and he 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:40.720 and he got home and he told his parents and 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:44.040 grandparents about it, and they said to him, oh, Fred, 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:48.480 if you just pretend you don't care, just pretend it 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:52.000 doesn't matter to you that you don't care, then they'll 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:56.480 leave you alone. And Fred went up to his room, 0:10:56.760 --> 0:10:59.360 this is a little boy of about ten or eleven 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:04.040 and sadness room, and said to himself, I do care. 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:11.400 The stoic white people who settled in northern Appalachia, they 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:14.720 probably wouldn't have survived without advice like just to pretend 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:18.320 you don't care. But the problem for young Fred was 0:11:18.360 --> 0:11:21.240 that even though he was from these people, he was 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:25.840 not quite of them. He was, for some reason, made 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:30.240 of something different. He had to find ways to work 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:34.480 through his sensitivity and loneliness. So he created puppets to 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:37.120 play with in his room. And he used them to 0:11:37.160 --> 0:11:39.800 work through all the feelings he wasn't supposed to have, 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:42.800 and in a sense he did pretend not to have 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.920 those feelings. He gave them to his puppets. I think 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:51.040 every one of them has a facet of me, Lady 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:55.880 Laine certainly, the mischief maker, the fund maker, Exdals, the 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:59.760 adolescent all love flying around this place of and look, 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:05.240 I'm for you all anyway. It's a lot easier, even 0:12:05.360 --> 0:12:12.439 as an adult, for me to have Daniel say I'm 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:17.200 really scared. Do you think maybe you could give me 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:21.000 a hug? You know, but that would be hard for 0:12:21.040 --> 0:12:22.840 me to say, I'm really scared. Do you think you 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.559 can give me a huff? When we're teens and our 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.959 social lives become so much more important, we need more 0:12:30.000 --> 0:12:33.160 than make believe in puppets to make life feel manageable, 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:39.319 even Fred did. I was very, very shy when I 0:12:39.360 --> 0:12:43.880 was in grade school, and when I got to high school, 0:12:45.679 --> 0:12:49.440 I was scared to death to go. But just so 0:12:49.559 --> 0:12:56.040 happened that in our class there was this big man 0:12:56.080 --> 0:12:59.760 on campus by the name of Jim Stumbaugh who was 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:05.280 every team and he got hurt at a football practice, 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:10.000 and I was told to take his homework to him 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:14.079 to the hospital. Over time, a relationship began to develop 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:18.360 between shy, quiet Freddie and Jim, the big man on campus. 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:26.679 We started to talk and I could see what substance 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:33.560 there was in this jock, you know. And evidently he 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:37.960 could see what substance there was in this shy kid. 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:42.480 So when he got out of the hospital and went 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:46.320 back to the school, he said to people, you know 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:51.959 that that Roger's kids. Okay. That made all the difference 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:57.000 in the world for me, just somebody saying to the 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:02.480 others that Roger's kids, okay. It was after that that 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:06.240 I started writing for the newspaper, got to be president 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:12.360 of student council. You know what a difference one person 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:18.680 can make in the life of another. It's almost as 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:25.000 if he said, I like you just the way you are. 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.080 Did you ever have an experience like this where the 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:35.000 kindness of just one person changed the course of your life. 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:41.680 Being accepted and welcomed by this jock healed something inside 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.960 Fred Rogers, and Fred would eventually use his television program 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:49.880 to demonstrate what he understood to be a religious idea. 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:56.160 We are broken and we're not really capable of fixing ourselves. 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.200 But there is this God of love that transcends the 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:03.080 brokenness and enters into our lives and our world to 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:07.000 love us as we are, and often that love shows 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:12.440 up through other people. Again. Mr Rogers Neighborhood was not 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:16.120 a religious show, but Lisa dor Meyer says it was 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:19.400 a vehicle for the love of a god that Fred 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.760 Rogers deeply believed in. I think a lot of people 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:27.000 just didn't take the time to listen to what he 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:30.280 was really saying. They thought that he was very simplistic 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:34.400 and really didn't have depth to that message. But when 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:38.560 you listened, when you read, there was an incredible depth 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:42.800 and call to action in his interactions on the show. 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:58.360 In Mr Rogers Fish Died, take a look at the aquarium. 0:15:58.400 --> 0:16:01.560 Do you see a dead fish? You might remember he 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.560 had a whole tank of them, and one of the tiny, 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:08.360 guppy sized ones sank to the stone at the bottom 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:13.480 and stayed there. Fred scoops it out and stares hard 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:18.240 into the cameras we better bury it. He solemnly wraps 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:22.200 the fish in a yellow cloth. Back here in the 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:25.680 the whole sequence of discovering the dead fish, trying to 0:16:25.720 --> 0:16:29.720 revive the fish, and then Burying the Fish runs longer 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:34.800 than five minutes, during which Fred doesn't speak more than 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:48.840 ten sentences. I counted the rest is silence. And finally, 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:56.200 after all this ceremony, Mr Rogers just tells us a story. 0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:00.280 When I was very young, I had a dog that 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:06.720 I loved very much. Her name was Mitsy mm hmm. 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:14.359 And she got to be old and she died, and 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:19.399 I was very sad when she died because she and 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:27.480 I were good pals. Mm hmm. And when she died, 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:35.280 I cried. My grandmother heard me crying, I remember, and 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:37.840 she came and she just put her arm around me 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:44.480 because she knew I was sad. She knew how much 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:51.520 I loved that dog. And my dad said we'd we'd 0:17:51.520 --> 0:18:02.280 have to bury Metsy, and I didn't want to. I 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:04.760 didn't want to bury her because I thought i'd just 0:18:04.880 --> 0:18:11.639 pretend that she was still alive. My dad said that 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:15.320 her body was dead and we'd have to bury her, 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:24.880 so we did. By this time, Fred Rogers had used 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:28.440 this program to talk quite frankly to four or five 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:32.800 and six year olds about assassination and racism and war, 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:37.040 and now he was doing a whole episode about death, 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:41.800 about mortality, and never once does he say a thing 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:51.400 about God, just Mitzi and a song. Why Why? Why? Why? 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:57.640 Wonder why? He shows that it's okay and important to 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:04.160 ask a big unanswered question and to keep asking it. Why. 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:21.040 We'll be right back. Teething can be a real nightmare 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:22.720 for your little ones. So are you looking for the 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:26.760 best relief to soothe teething pain? Or Highlands Naturals Baby 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:29.520 oral pain relief can help use the pain. 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My name 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:20.560 is Aaron Bisno, Rabbi at Rhodef Shalem Congregation, which is 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:26.159 the largest Jewish congregation in Pittsburgh. And you have a 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:28.320 you have a picture of Fred Rogers in your office? 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:34.560 Is I do I do why um Well, he is 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:39.080 the full picture from the magazine quotas what if Heaven 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:42.400 is the relationships we make here, and that rather than 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.720 waiting for a world that we might one day inherit 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:48.720 or merit, we have an opportunity in a few number 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.399 of years, while we're with each other, to make of 0:21:51.520 --> 0:21:55.720 this world the world of which we speak and dream. 0:21:55.920 --> 0:22:01.200 Fred's own spiritual activity was rooted deeply in Presbyterian faith, 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.560 but he understood that not everyone finds God or religion 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:09.040 to be a source of solace or sustenance. Even if 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:11.960 people believe in some kind of greater power, that faith 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:15.320 doesn't necessarily give them answers about what to do about 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:20.480 loneliness and fear hurt. Believing in God doesn't necessarily mean 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:26.560 feeling all of God's love, So the the Christian theologian C. S. Lewis, 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:28.840 in a very small monograph he wrote in the year 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:33.399 following his wife's death, called a Grief Observed, he is 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:35.480 a line where he says, do not speak to me 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:38.919 of the comforts of religion, or I shall know that 0:22:38.960 --> 0:22:42.880 you do not understand. We're hurting, right, And it's not 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:46.880 that we want your theology or your pronouncements about how 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:49.199 this is all power of God's plan, or you're in 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:51.480 God's hand, but rather I need a hug, or I 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:53.080 need to be able to cry right now, or I 0:22:53.080 --> 0:22:55.480 need to just be silent with you and not have 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:58.320 you demand anything of me. It's so interesting because Fred 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:02.879 wasn't an ordained minister who in a sense saw his 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:07.440 show as a kind of ministry, I would believe, and 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:10.639 the television was his pulpit. Yes, you know, it's like, 0:23:10.720 --> 0:23:13.720 given all that, it strikes me as particularly meaningful that 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:18.840 he uh did not very very rarely is as far 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:22.280 as I know, said the word God um in his work. 0:23:22.440 --> 0:23:24.680 He's not there to edify you about religion. He's there 0:23:24.760 --> 0:23:26.439 to do this other thing, which is this kind of 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:28.840 comfort and support, and he doesn't need to mention God 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:31.679 in order to do that. Uh. And in fact, maybefore 0:23:31.680 --> 0:23:34.000 a lot of people mentioned God would would interfere with 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:36.639 his ability to do that. And so I think that 0:23:36.680 --> 0:23:40.600 that's right. And Fred Rogers lets everybody know that, Hey, 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:43.120 I like you just the way you are. You're good enough, 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:46.240 you're wonderful, right, You're exactly who you're supposed to be. 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:47.840 There's no one in the world just like you and 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:52.640 the world will be a poorer place in your absence. Um. 0:23:52.800 --> 0:23:55.399 That's a really beautiful message. And we don't need to 0:23:55.560 --> 0:23:57.439 uh to muck it up for to confuse it, or 0:23:57.480 --> 0:24:02.200 to uh uh divide ourselves one from another by overlaying 0:24:02.200 --> 0:24:06.280 it with words like like god fed Rogers saw the 0:24:06.280 --> 0:24:09.760 opportunity to use television as a means of reaching a 0:24:09.760 --> 0:24:13.000 pulpit from which to reach, not preach, quite more to 0:24:13.119 --> 0:24:16.440 pastor right more, to be there as as one who 0:24:16.480 --> 0:24:20.480 comforts reassures. What's that distinction between preach and pastor, as 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:23.240 you just made it well. So often in in um 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:28.360 describing clergy work, UM people speak of of being a preacher, 0:24:28.440 --> 0:24:32.320 a pastor, or a priest, and so preaching is what 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:34.280 you do in a pulpit or teaching or in a 0:24:34.359 --> 0:24:37.560 classroom kind of thing, right, and pastoring is holding someone's 0:24:37.600 --> 0:24:40.840 hand and being with them. Fred Rogers chose to understand 0:24:40.880 --> 0:24:44.760 the medium and what incredible insight to do so to 0:24:44.960 --> 0:24:47.720 comfort and to reassure, and to serve as a guide 0:24:47.720 --> 0:24:51.480 and a friend who's gonna walk with you through this divorce, 0:24:51.960 --> 0:24:55.280 through this death, through this experience you're having, through the 0:24:55.280 --> 0:25:02.439 pains of growing up Fred's program was his pulpit, not 0:25:02.520 --> 0:25:07.840 metaphorically literally. A few years after he started making children's 0:25:07.840 --> 0:25:11.240 TV programming, Fred started attending classes at what is now 0:25:11.280 --> 0:25:15.840 known as Pittsburgh Theological Seminary on his lunch breaks. Eight 0:25:15.920 --> 0:25:19.680 years later, he was an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church. 0:25:20.440 --> 0:25:23.359 He received an extremely unique assignment from the body that 0:25:23.400 --> 0:25:28.320 oversees ministry. Fred was tasked quote to minister to families 0:25:28.400 --> 0:25:33.040 through the mass media. But the thing is, if you're 0:25:33.080 --> 0:25:37.159 ministering through mass media, especially public media, then you're not 0:25:37.280 --> 0:25:41.840 just ministering to your congregation. You're not just reaching Presbyterians 0:25:42.000 --> 0:25:45.800 or Christians or even believers. Anyone can be on the 0:25:45.800 --> 0:25:49.480 other side of that TV screen. Your congregation has to 0:25:49.520 --> 0:25:53.160 include every kind of person that might be in the world, 0:25:54.200 --> 0:25:59.359 and that requires a very skillful pastor. You know. I 0:26:00.640 --> 0:26:02.520 my ex wife gave me a ride to the airport 0:26:02.600 --> 0:26:04.560 for this trip, and we were talking about this on 0:26:04.600 --> 0:26:06.720 the way and she said, she said, what I remember 0:26:06.720 --> 0:26:09.240 about Fred Rodgers is that's where I learned to use chopsticks. 0:26:09.280 --> 0:26:10.960 And I said, oh really, She said yeah, and she 0:26:11.040 --> 0:26:13.879 described it and she said, you know, it was really slow, 0:26:14.080 --> 0:26:16.080 and we just sat there together and he taught me 0:26:16.080 --> 0:26:18.480 how to use chopsticks. And I thought that was such 0:26:18.520 --> 0:26:21.399 an interesting phrasing that she said we just sat there together, 0:26:21.840 --> 0:26:25.399 because she was clearly watching TV, and yet even through 0:26:26.160 --> 0:26:30.240 this medium of separation, she felt that Fred Rogers was 0:26:30.280 --> 0:26:33.800 sitting with her showing her how to use chopsticks. And 0:26:33.920 --> 0:26:37.760 that's what he referred to Carril as holy ground, the 0:26:37.880 --> 0:26:42.160 space between Fred in the studio and all the millions 0:26:42.200 --> 0:26:46.040 of people children, youth and adults watching the neighborhood on television. 0:26:46.480 --> 0:26:49.640 George Worth is a Presbyterian minister and was a close 0:26:49.680 --> 0:26:52.479 friend of Fred's for twenty years. He told me that 0:26:52.480 --> 0:26:57.199 Fred's communication with kids through the television was sacred, an 0:26:57.240 --> 0:27:03.480 almost inexplicable communion. Something happened across that space that he 0:27:03.560 --> 0:27:09.520 believed was deeply spiritual and mystical um and so he 0:27:09.520 --> 0:27:12.959 he really thought about himself sitting there with just one person, 0:27:13.320 --> 0:27:16.160 even though there were millions of people watching. He thought 0:27:16.160 --> 0:27:19.680 about being with one person at a time. They called 0:27:19.720 --> 0:27:23.680 it Fred time it was on the program. Things would 0:27:23.800 --> 0:27:26.679 slow down as the program would begin. He'd take his 0:27:26.720 --> 0:27:30.000 sneakers off, he'd put on his sweater. He slowed the 0:27:30.080 --> 0:27:34.280 pace down and that gave him the opportunity not only 0:27:34.359 --> 0:27:38.000 to see other people, but to be able to express 0:27:38.520 --> 0:27:41.320 his love and care for other people and reach out 0:27:41.400 --> 0:27:45.679 and touch our hearts as well. This was no TV gimmick. 0:27:46.600 --> 0:27:50.000 It was some sort of technique of attention kindness that 0:27:50.080 --> 0:27:52.840 Fred developed that he was able to communicate through the 0:27:52.920 --> 0:27:56.600 cameras and air waves and TV sets, But he communicated 0:27:56.640 --> 0:28:01.200 that attention and kindness in person too. What was true 0:28:01.240 --> 0:28:04.280 about fed Rogers is he was he was tuned in 0:28:04.720 --> 0:28:08.760 at a deeper level than most people. Uh. Fred could 0:28:08.840 --> 0:28:13.119 see with his eyes. He was very observant of what 0:28:13.160 --> 0:28:16.000 was happening around him, especially of the people with whom 0:28:16.080 --> 0:28:19.600 he was talking at whatever they were doing. But he 0:28:19.720 --> 0:28:25.200 also could see with his heart. Um. He had um 0:28:25.240 --> 0:28:29.760 an open heart to people. You know, this is particularly 0:28:29.800 --> 0:28:31.920 timely for me because I have a sixteen year old 0:28:31.960 --> 0:28:36.359 son and he and I are embroiled in a long term, 0:28:36.560 --> 0:28:40.600 friendly but philosophical argument about religion, and my son has 0:28:40.640 --> 0:28:43.560 now reached the point where he's he's really he really 0:28:43.680 --> 0:28:46.600 enjoys the what he thinks is the intellectual rigor of 0:28:47.440 --> 0:28:52.080 atheism and uh right. He likes to point out that 0:28:52.080 --> 0:28:53.960