WEBVTT - Break, Don't Bend 0:00:02.000 --> 0:00:08.440 Why does it have to get dark? Why won't the 0:00:08.640 --> 0:00:16.560 day always stay? Let's say good bye to the night time, 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:27.360 good bye, Let's send the dark time away. Some day, oh, 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:34.159 some day I'll know what to say. Some day, oh, 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:49.240 some day I'll not have to say? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Wonder? 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:57.880 Why why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why why why 0:00:57.880 --> 0:01:11.120 why why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Do you 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:15.600 ask a lot of why questions? I know I always 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:21.319 did when I was a little I still do. Mm hmm. 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.600 Bad stuff happens, and for a lot of us, our 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:32.560 first response is why why is this happening to me? 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.679 Fred Rogers sang songs like this one to show kids 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:41.080 it's okay to ask the question, But in his own 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:45.400 life and in a show, he turned why into how 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:49.960 how to respond? How to make someone else's life better? 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:53.360 How to be good in a world filled with bad? 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:01.520 I'm Carvil Wallace and This is Finding Fred, a podcast 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:04.600 about Fred Rogers from I Heart Media and Fatherly in 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:13.480 partnership with Transmitter Media. Last episode, we talked about the 0:02:13.520 --> 0:02:16.880 famous scene in Mr Rogers Neighborhood in which Fred washes 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:21.400 Francois Clement's feet. It was politically charged a white man 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:24.520 sharing a swimming pool with a black man, But the 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:28.680 scene was also a blatant recreation of a Bible story 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:34.079 from the Gospel of John. In this story, Jesus washes 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:38.080 the feet of his followers, the people who are supposedly 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:42.880 less powerful, less important than himself. The moral is that 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:47.320 great leaders are first and foremost great servants, that we 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:52.480 can and maybe should, serve one another. But for all 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:56.080 the biblically evocative nature of the footpath scene, which most 0:02:56.200 --> 0:03:05.239 striking is what Fred Rogers doesn't say. God Fred was 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.760 an ordained Presbyterian minister, though you wouldn't even know it 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:12.359 from watching his program, This scene with Officer Clement is 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:14.920 about as close as he ever came to telling a 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:22.720 Bible story in the neighborhood. Here's a question, when I 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:28.400 say the word religion, what is your response, comfort? Or 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:32.400 does your guard go up for me? I don't have 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:34.560 much of a reaction to it at all. It was 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:37.640 not forced on me in any uncomfortable way. The Bible 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.040 camps and churches I went to were, in my mind, 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:48.080 sometimes boring, sometimes interesting, but largely inconsequential. Although I was 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.560 deathly afraid of Satan, and the Book of Revelations and 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.520 the Second Coming. And when I thought about these things 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:56.960 as a kid, my mouth would go dry and my 0:03:57.040 --> 0:03:59.640 stomach would feel like it was filled with hot lead, 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:03.800 and that would lay awake in bed, just terrified. So 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:10.520 maybe it was a big deal. What about you? Where 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:15.480 does your response to religion live in your heart, in 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:21.240 your brain, in the pit of your stomach. What do 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:25.159 you think religion is for? Oh boy, that's that's a 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:28.320 bit of a loaded question, especially in in the world 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:32.200 we live in today. Lisa Dormeyer was an intern on Mr. 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.960 Rogers neighborhood. She later attended seminary and was a chaplain 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:38.880 of the Children's Hospital. Today she helps run a senior 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.080 care facility just outside of Pittsburgh, not far from where 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:44.960 Fred Rogers grew up. Here in western Pennsylvania, we have 0:04:45.040 --> 0:04:49.279 a lot of Scottish and German influence, and that's my ancestry, 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:54.520 which is not very affectionate or even affirming. This was 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:58.800 the same background Fred Rogers came from. People men especially, 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:03.679 were stern, stolid, maybe even a little cold. And these 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:09.120 sturdy old Scottish immigrants were Presbyterians. It's a Protestant Christian 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.000 tradition that is older than the founding of this country. 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:15.720 In fact, there were so many Presbyterians involved in writing 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.520 the Declaration of Independence and early governance that a lot 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:21.520 of our United States government structures are similar to the 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:27.520 Presbyterian tradition of election and general assembly bodies that come 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.680 together as as a voice. We don't have bishops, we 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.800 don't have a pope. Um. Our elected leadership changes on 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:39.880 a regular basis um. So that's kind of our structure. Theologically, 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.600 we're Calvinists, and so we believe that we are unable 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.040 to save ourselves. We are fully reliant on the grace 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:51.279 of God to save us, and that to me has 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:55.200 always been that's the gift of being a Presbyterian, is 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:58.320 that belief that in our brokenness, God enters the world 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.200 to love and claim us as we are. We're broken 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:05.599 already and God loves us just the way we are. 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:11.960 My mother and dad were both on boards of our church. 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:19.760 I remember early on being very very taken with the 0:06:19.960 --> 0:06:25.880 kinds of things that the ministers were talking about. Fred 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:29.680 sat for a four and a half hour retrospective interview, 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:33.240 and rather than talk explicitly about his beliefs, he talked 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.320 about the ways in which growing up he saw faith 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:40.880 tangibly at work in the world, like his industrialist father's 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:45.000 philanthropy and his mother's service work. I think she had 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:51.040 something like twenty five thousand volunteer hours at the hospital. 0:06:51.760 --> 0:06:55.640 She loved being a narciss aid, and during the Second 0:06:55.640 --> 0:07:01.920 World War she was in charge of banking surgical dressings 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:07.320 for the troops. And I remember as a little boy 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:12.600 going down and seeing the people folding these gauze squares, 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:17.960 you know, and then they would ship them off. I mean, 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.360 what better metaphor for binding up the brokenness of the 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:31.920 world than literally making gauze bandages. M Fred Rogers grew 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.680 up in La Trobe, Pennsylvania, a small but active industrial 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.840 town just outside of Pittsburgh, and it's heyday there were 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:42.920 trolley cars billowing smokestacks. It's where the banana split was invented. 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:45.920 But Fred grew up in the middle of the Great Depression. 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:50.280 The Tropes population was mostly blue collar people working in factories, 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:53.280 and pretty much everyone was struggling to make ends meet. 0:07:54.240 --> 0:07:59.080 Pretty much everyone except the Rogers family. They came from 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:02.480 old banking and industry money. Both of his parents were 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:07.360 extraordinarily giving helped all hundreds and hundreds of people and 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:11.720 families in Latrobe. They gave away a lot of their 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:15.320 money to to other people who needed it. Maxwell King 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.560 is Fred's biographer. The message he got from watching his 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:24.600 parents was caring and being neighborly and being concerned and 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:27.840 being considerate. They had a lot of privilege, and I 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:30.120 think that that may be one of the reasons that 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.840 Fred felt like an outlier. He was very shy as 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:38.080 a little boy. He was introverted, he was lonely. The 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:42.240 family had a limousine drive him to elementary school every day. 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:45.959 Can you imagine that? Can you imagine you might just 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:49.480 get teased a little bit about that. Some kids weren't 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:51.800 allowed to come over to Fred's house because their parents 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:56.800 worried their clothes weren't nice enough. Fred was lonely, a quiet, 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.800 chubby kid who suffered from childhood asthma. He was self conscious, 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.360 and he was insecure. Kids at school called him Fat Freddy. 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:09.640 One day, his chauffeur didn't show up to drive him 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:13.360 home from school, kids chased him down the street, you know, 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:17.439 shouting out, We're gonna get you, Fat Freddy. And he 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.600 was very traumatized by the experience, and he and he 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:24.839 got home and he told his parents and grandparents about it, 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.679 and they said to him, oh, Fred, if you just 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:32.320 pretend you don't care, just pretend it doesn't matter to 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:35.760 you that you don't care, then they'll leave you alone. 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:40.560 And Fred went up to his room. This is a 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:43.560 little boy of about ten or eleven, and sat in 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:50.560 his room and said to himself, I do care. The 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:54.720 stoic white people who settled in northern Appolachia, they probably 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.320 wouldn't have survived without advice, like, just pretend you don't care. 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:01.960 But the problem him, for young Fred was that even 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.920 though he was from these people, he was not quite 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:10.160 of them. He was, for some reason, made of something different. 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.520 He had to find ways to work through his sensitivity 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.040 and loneliness. So he created puppets to play with in 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:20.960 his room, and he used them to work through all 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:23.920 the feelings he wasn't supposed to have. And in a 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:27.040 sense he did pretend not to have those feelings. He 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:30.480 gave them to his puppets. I think every one of 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:35.840 them has a facet of me, Lady Elaine, certainly the 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:40.920 mischief maker, the fund maker, exdals, the adolescent, all love 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:45.480 flying around this place. I've been looking for you all anyway. 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:51.800 It's a lot easier even as an adult for me 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:59.000 to have Daniel say I'm really scared. Do you think 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:02.880 maybe you could keep me a huck? You know? But 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:05.320 that would be hard for me to say, I'm really scared, 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.920 do you think you can give me? When we're teens 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:12.280 and our social lives become so much more important, we 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:15.200 need more than make believe in puppets to make life 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:21.160 feel manageable. Even fred did. I was very, very shy 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:26.040 when I was in grade school, and when I got 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:30.319 to high school, I was scared to death to go. 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:37.560 But just so happened that in our class there was 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:41.120 this big man on campus by the name of Jim 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:46.760 Stumball who was on every team, and he got hurt 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:51.680 at a football practice and I was told to take 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:55.480 his homework to him to the hospital. Over time, a 0:11:55.559 --> 0:12:00.000 relationship began to develop between shy, quiet Freddie and Jim, 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:05.080 the big man on campus. We started to talk and 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:13.400 I could see what substance there was in this jock, 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:18.920 you know, And evidently he could see what substance there 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:24.240 was in this shy kid. So when he got out 0:12:24.240 --> 0:12:27.560 of the hospital, and went back to the school. He 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.280 said to people, you know that that Roger's kids. Okay. 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:36.640 That made all the difference in the world for me, 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:43.319 just somebody saying to the others that Roger's kids okay. 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:47.559 It was after that that I started writing for the newspaper, 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:52.640 got to be president of the student council. What a 0:12:52.920 --> 0:12:57.520 difference one person can make in the life of another. 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:06.720 H It's almost as if he said, I like you 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:11.560 just the way you are. Did you ever have an 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:15.920 experience like this where the kindness of just one person 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:21.559 changed the course of your life. Being accepted and welcomed 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:26.760 by this jock healed something inside Fred Rogers, and Fred 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:30.280 would eventually use his television program to demonstrate what he 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:35.440 understood to be a religious idea. We are broken and 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:39.920 we're not really capable of fixing ourselves. But there is 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:44.080 this God of love that transcends the brokenness and enters 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:46.920 into our lives and our world to love us as 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:53.800 we are, and often that love shows up through other people. Again, 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:57.800 Mr Rogers Neighborhood was not a religious show, but Lisa 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.040 dor Meyer says it was a vehicle for the love 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.880 of a god that Fred Rogers deeply believed in. I 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.480 think a lot of people just didn't take the time 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:11.600 to listen to what he was really saying. They thought 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.920 that he was very simplistic and really didn't have depth 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:19.200 to that message. But when you listened, when you read, 0:14:19.360 --> 0:14:23.880 there was an incredible depth and call to action in 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:39.280 his interactions on the show. In Mr Rogers, fish Died. 0:14:40.000 --> 0:14:41.840 Take a look at the aquarium. Do you see a 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:45.320 dead fish? You might remember he had a whole tank 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:48.680 of them, and one of the tiny, guppy sized ones 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:52.080 sank to the stones at the bottom and stayed there. 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:57.280 Fred scoops it out and stares hard into the camera 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:01.320 as we better bury it. M He solemnly wraps the 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:04.440 fish in a yellow cloth and the place back here 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:07.920 in the yard. The whole sequence of discovering the dead fish, 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.720 trying to revive the fish, and then burying the fish 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:16.880 runs longer than five minutes, during which Fred doesn't speak 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:25.400 more than ten sentences I counted. The rest is silence. 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:37.920 And finally, after all this ceremony, Mr Rogers just tells 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:42.320 us a story. When I was very young, I had 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:47.160 a dog that I loved very much. Her name was Mitzi. 0:15:49.240 --> 0:15:54.840 Mm hmm. When she got to be old and she died. 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:02.360 I was very sad when she died, because she and 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:10.400 I were good pals. Mm hmmm. And when she died, 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:18.240 I cried. My grandmother heard me crying, I remember, and 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:20.760 she came and she just put her arm around me 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:27.400 because she knew I was sad. She knew how much 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:34.400 I loved that dog. And my dad said we'd we'd 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:45.200 have to bury Metsy. And I didn't want to. I 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:47.720 didn't want to bury her because I thought I'd just 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:54.480 pretend that she was still alive. But my dad said 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:58.400 that her body was dead and we'd have to bury her, 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:07.840 so we did. By this time, Fred Rogers had used 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.399 this program to talk quite frankly to four or five 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:15.720 and six year olds about assassination and racism and war, 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:20.000 and now he was doing a whole episode about death, 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:24.720 about mortality, and never once does he say a thing 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:34.359 about God, just Mizzi and a song. Why Why? Why? Why? 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:40.479 Wonder why? He shows that it's okay and important to 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:47.119 ask a big, unanswerable question and to keep asking it. Why. 0:17:48.359 --> 0:18:14.679 We'll be right back Why why Fred Rogers? Uh. We 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:18.359 live in his neighborhood. In my office was right across 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.920 the street, from w q e D, the public television 0:18:22.040 --> 0:18:26.880 radio station from which Mr. Rogers was broadcast. My name 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:32.399 is Aaron Bisno, Rabbi at Rhodef Shalem Congregation, which is 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:38.000 the largest Jewish congregation in Pittsburgh. And you have a 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:40.160 you have a picture of Fred Rogers in your office? 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:46.399 Is I do I do? Why? Um? Well? He is 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:50.919 the full picture from the magazine quotas What if Heaven 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.239 is the relationships we make here, and that rather than 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.560 waiting for a world that we might one day inherit 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.560 or merit, we have an opportunity in a few number 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.280 of years, while we're with each other, to make of 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:07.600 this world the world of which we speak and dream. 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:13.040 Fred's own spiritual activity was rooted deeply in his Presbyterian faith, 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.400 but he understood that not everyone finds God or religion 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:20.879 to be a source of solace or sustenance. Even if 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.800 people believe in some kind of greater power, that faith 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.320 doesn't necessarily give them answers about what to do about 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:32.320 loneliness and fear hurt. Believing in God doesn't necessarily mean 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:38.000 feeling all of God's love. So the the Christian theologian C. S. 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:40.439 Lewis in a very small monograph he wrote in the 0:19:40.520 --> 0:19:45.119 year following his wife's death, called A Grief Observed. He 0:19:45.240 --> 0:19:47.199 is a line where he says, do not speak to 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:50.600 me of the comforts of religion, or I shall know 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:54.520 that you do not understand. We're hurting, right. And it's 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:58.560 not that we want your theology or your pronouncements about 0:19:58.560 --> 0:20:00.920 how this is all part of God's plan or you're 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:03.240 in God's hand, but rather I need a hug, or 0:20:03.240 --> 0:20:04.840 I need to be able to cry right now, or 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:06.760 I need to just be silent with you and not 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:09.760 have you demand anything of me. It's so interesting because 0:20:09.840 --> 0:20:14.480 Fred wasn't an ordained minister who in a sense saw 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:17.240 his show as a kind of ministry, I would believe, 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:22.520 and the television was his pulpit. Yes, you know, it's like, 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.600 given all that, it strikes me as particularly meaningful that 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:30.679 he uh did not very very rarely is, as far 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:34.159 as I know, said the word God um in his work. 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:36.560 He's not there to edify you about religion. He's there 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:38.280 to do this other thing, which is this kind of 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:40.720 comfort and support, and he doesn't need to mention God 0:20:40.720 --> 0:20:43.560 in order to do that. Uh. And in fact, maybefore 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:45.840 a lot of people mentioned God would would interfere with 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:48.480 his ability to do that, and so I think that 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:52.440 that's right. And Fred Rogers lets everybody know that, Hey, 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:54.960 I like you just the way you are. You're good enough, 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:58.080 you're wonderful, right, You're exactly who you're supposed to be. 0:20:58.080 --> 0:20:59.639 There's no one in the world just like you, and 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.480 the world will be a poorer place in your absence. Um, 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.240 that's a really beautiful message. And we don't need to 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:09.280 uh to muck it up, or to confuse it, or 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:14.040 to uh uh divide ourselves one from another by overlaying 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:18.119 it with words like like God. Fed Rogers saw the 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:21.600 opportunity to use television as a means of reaching a 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:24.840 pulpit from which to reach, not preach, quite more to 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:28.239 pastor right more, to be there as as one who 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:32.320 comforts reassures. What's that distinction between preach and pastor? As 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.080 you just made it well. So often in in um 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:40.200 describing clergy work, UM people speak of of being a preacher, 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:44.159 a pastor, or a priest. And so preaching is what 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:46.159 you do on a pulpit or teaching or in a 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:49.439 classroom kind of thing, right, and pastoring is holding someone's 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:52.720 hand and being with them. Fred Rogers chose to understand 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:56.600 the medium and what incredible insight to do so to 0:21:56.800 --> 0:21:59.560 comfort and to reassure, and to serve as a guide 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:03.320 and a friend who's gonna walk with you through this divorce, 0:22:03.800 --> 0:22:07.119 through this death, through this experience you're having, through the 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:14.280 pains of growing up. Fred's program was his pulpit, not 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:19.680 metaphorically literally. A few years after he started making children's 0:22:19.720 --> 0:22:23.080 TV programming, Fred started attending classes at what is now 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:27.680 known as Pittsburgh Theological Seminary on his lunch breaks. Eight 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:31.399 years later, he was an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church. 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:35.199 He received an extremely unique assignment from the body that 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:40.159 oversees ministry. Fred was tasked quote to minister to families 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:44.880 through the mass media. But the thing is, if you're 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:49.040 ministering through mass media, especially public media, then you're not 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:53.760 just ministering to your congregation. You're not just reaching Presbyterians 0:22:53.880 --> 0:22:57.639 or Christians or even believers. Anyone can be on the 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:01.320 other side of that TV screen. Your congregation has to 0:23:01.400 --> 0:23:05.000 include every kind of person that might be in the world, 0:23:06.040 --> 0:23:11.199 and that requires a very skillful pastor. You know, I 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:14.400 my ex wife gave me a ride to the airport 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:16.399 for this trip, and we were talking about this on 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:18.560 the way and she said, she said, what I remember 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:21.119 about Fred Rodgers is that's where I learned to use chopsticks. 0:23:21.119 --> 0:23:22.800 And I said, oh really, She said yeah, and she 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:25.720 described it and she said, you know, it was really slow, 0:23:25.920 --> 0:23:27.919 and we just sat there together and he taught me 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:30.320 how to use chopsticks. And I thought that was such 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:33.240 an interesting phrasing that she said we just sat there together, 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:37.240 because she was clearly watching TV, and yet even through 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:42.119 this medium of separation, she felt that Fred Rogers was 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:45.679 sitting with her showing her how to use chopsticks. And 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:49.600 that's what he referred to Carril as holy ground, the 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:54.000 space between Fred in the studio and all the millions 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:57.920 of people children, youth and adults watching the neighborhood on television. 0:23:58.359 --> 0:24:01.520 George Worth is a Presbyterian minister and was a close 0:24:01.520 --> 0:24:04.320 friend of Fred's for twenty years. He told me that 0:24:04.320 --> 0:24:09.080 Fred's communication with kids through the television was sacred, an 0:24:09.080 --> 0:24:15.359 almost inexplicable communion. Something happened across that space that he 0:24:15.400 --> 0:24:21.360 believed was deeply spiritual and mystical um and so he 0:24:21.359 --> 0:24:24.800 he really thought about himself sitting there with just one person, 0:24:25.200 --> 0:24:27.960 even though there were millions of people watching. He thought 0:24:28.000 --> 0:24:31.520 about being with one person at a time. They called 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:35.560 it Fred time it was on the program. Things would 0:24:35.640 --> 0:24:38.560 slow down as the program would begin, He'd take his 0:24:38.560 --> 0:24:41.840 sneakers off, he'd put on his sweater. He slowed the 0:24:41.920 --> 0:24:46.119 pace down, and that gave him the opportunity not only 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:49.840 to see other people, but to be able to express 0:24:50.400 --> 0:24:53.240 his love and care for other people and reach out 0:24:53.280 --> 0:24:57.560 and touch our hearts as well. This was no TV gimmick. 0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:01.920 It was some sort of technique of attention kindness that 0:25:01.960 --> 0:25:04.720 Fred developed that he was able to communicate through the 0:25:04.800 --> 0:25:08.440 cameras and air waves and TV sets, But he communicated 0:25:08.480 --> 0:25:13.040 that attention and kindness in person too. What was true 0:25:13.080 --> 0:25:16.080 about fed Rogers is he was he was tuned in 0:25:16.560 --> 0:25:20.560 at a deeper level than most people. Uh. Fred could 0:25:20.680 --> 0:25:24.960 see with his eyes. He was very observant of what 0:25:25.040 --> 0:25:27.880 was happening around him, especially of the people with whom 0:25:27.920 --> 0:25:31.439 he was talking at whatever they were doing. But he 0:25:31.560 --> 0:25:37.040 also could see with his heart. Um. He had um 0:25:37.080 --> 0:25:41.600 an open heart to people. You know, this is particularly 0:25:41.640 --> 0:25:43.720 timely for me because I have a sixteen year old 0:25:43.800 --> 0:25:48.200 son and he and I are embroiled in a long term, 0:25:48.400 --> 0:25:52.480 friendly but philosophical argument about religion. And my son has 0:25:52.480 --> 0:25:55.400 now reached the point where he's he's really he really 0:25:55.520 --> 0:26:00.280 enjoys the what he thinks is the intellectual rigor of atheism. 0:26:00.480 --> 0:26:04.159 And uh, he likes to point out that that the 0:26:04.160 --> 0:26:06.800 people of religion have been responsible for so many terrible things, 0:26:06.840 --> 0:26:10.720 and that there's so much hypocrisy, and and I absolutely 0:26:10.760 --> 0:26:15.960 understand where it's coming from. And it is true that 0:26:16.000 --> 0:26:18.439 you can look at a lot of Christians and Christianity 0:26:18.720 --> 0:26:22.159 and see a lot of problems and a lot of 0:26:22.240 --> 0:26:24.880 violence against people and a lot of hatred. Even though 0:26:24.880 --> 0:26:27.040 I'm forty four, that still feels like a little child 0:26:27.400 --> 0:26:32.119 who's just learning that people can be bad. And I 0:26:32.160 --> 0:26:33.920 feel shocked by that. And I think one of the 0:26:34.000 --> 0:26:38.040 natural human responses is to go into fear, defensiveness, protection. 0:26:38.840 --> 0:26:44.240 And I wonder what made Fred Rogers so good at 0:26:44.680 --> 0:26:50.720 merging Christianity with love and and the expansion of rights 0:26:50.720 --> 0:26:54.960 and with care for each human being. And how how 0:26:55.000 --> 0:26:58.040 did you see Fred dealing with things that were things 0:26:58.040 --> 0:27:06.440 in the world that we're really bad murders, assassinations, violence, uh, genocide. 0:27:06.880 --> 0:27:09.920 How did he face those things both in his personal 0:27:09.960 --> 0:27:15.920 life spiritually and also just in his public work. Yeah, 0:27:16.560 --> 0:27:19.399 I had a problem with a person in the church 0:27:19.480 --> 0:27:23.959 that I was serving who really was not only disagreeable, 0:27:24.160 --> 0:27:27.119 but was was eager to see me move on to 0:27:27.240 --> 0:27:31.240 another place. He just didn't like me. And I was 0:27:31.280 --> 0:27:33.439 telling Fred about it over lunch one day and he 0:27:33.440 --> 0:27:36.080 looked at me and he said, George, I wonder what 0:27:36.240 --> 0:27:41.879 happened to that man when he was a child that 0:27:41.920 --> 0:27:47.399 has caused him to be so angry and so um 0:27:47.480 --> 0:27:52.200 determined to hurt you. I wonder what ho what pain 0:27:52.480 --> 0:27:57.200 that man suffered when he was a child that blew 0:27:57.240 --> 0:28:02.119 me away? Um, that's one of the answer. And also 0:28:02.480 --> 0:28:08.159 he believed that ultimately God prevails and that God is good. 0:28:08.400 --> 0:28:15.160 God can cause no harm. God loves with an redeeming 0:28:15.280 --> 0:28:20.520 love all of God's children on earth, and God is 0:28:21.880 --> 0:28:26.960 sad and feels the pain when bad things happen. The 0:28:27.280 --> 0:28:31.800 question why does God allow bad things to happen, of course, 0:28:32.119 --> 0:28:35.720 is the theological question that all of us ask. There's 0:28:35.760 --> 0:28:38.880 no answer to that. Ultimately we just don't know. But 0:28:39.000 --> 0:28:41.560 what we do know is when the bad things happen, 0:28:42.560 --> 0:28:47.360 God comes alongside us. God is present to us not 0:28:47.520 --> 0:28:50.440 only through our prayers to reading the Bible, but through 0:28:50.480 --> 0:28:56.000 other people. And Fred believed in doing God's work in 0:28:56.000 --> 0:28:59.200 the world, being with people through the difficulty, no matter 0:28:59.240 --> 0:29:03.280 who those people were or what they believed. Fred's ministry, 0:29:03.600 --> 0:29:07.600 the enormity and diversity of his TV congregation required that 0:29:07.640 --> 0:29:10.400 he looked for and communicate the things that people hold 0:29:10.440 --> 0:29:13.400 in common with one another, rather than the things that 0:29:13.520 --> 0:29:17.280 differentiate or divide them via sect, or denomination or creed. 0:29:18.600 --> 0:29:22.560 He was a very receptive person to other faith traditions 0:29:22.840 --> 0:29:26.080 and very sensitive to people who came from no faith 0:29:26.120 --> 0:29:30.479 tradition at all. He was um, i would say, broad 0:29:30.560 --> 0:29:34.719 gaged in that respect, a Christian and eventually became, as 0:29:34.800 --> 0:29:37.960 you know, a Presbyterian minister. But Fred went to school 0:29:38.080 --> 0:29:43.880 on other religions, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, the other religions and 0:29:44.000 --> 0:29:48.280 found the good in all of those faith traditions and 0:29:48.360 --> 0:29:52.440