The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World's Most Beloved Neighbor

by Amy Hollingsworth

Fred Rogers and his gentle care of children seemed to embody the words credited to Saint Francis of Assisi: “Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.”

“Mister Rogers has stated that the guiding philosophy of his life is one he gleaned from a seminary professor: You can be an accuser or an advocate. . . . Unfortunately, Mr. Feder, your mean-spirited statements and fallacious conclusions have led you to be an accuser.

Jeff must be very proud of his talented and sensitive wife.” Fred Rogers was always saying things like that to the people around him: “How blessed your wife is to have you for a husband!” “How blessed your colleagues are to have you to work with!” “How blessed your children are!” (He once even told me that a magazine I was working for at the time was “blessed” and “lucky” to have me on staff.)

But he also fiercely guarded his time of quiet and reflection (as you will see in the following chapter), and he always, always took his time.

“There are so many caring people in the world. So many caring mothers and fathers. We hear about the other kind, you know, the ones who are always hurting people, but when we hear from people who will do whatever they can to give their children some nourishment, it warms your heart.”

“You know how when you find somebody who you know is in touch with the truth, how you want to be in the presence of that person?”

In another attempt to help children understand about prayer, Mister Rogers once took his television neighbors along for a visit to the Sturgis Pretzel House, founded by Julius Sturgis, in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County. The baker explained to Mister Rogers and the viewers (my then–three-year-old son and I were watching that day) how monks long ago gave pretzels as treats to children who had remembered their prayers. The dough was rolled into strips and crossed, to represent a child’s arms folded in prayer (pretzel means “little arms”), and the three holes in the pretzel represented the Trinity.

Fred Rogers always wanted to be strong. As a teenager, he saved up his money and purchased a Charles Atlas exercise kit. Immortalized by ads depicting a skinny guy at the beach getting sand kicked in his face, Charles Atlas, the father of all bodybuilders, promised, “I turned myself from a 97-lb. weakling into the World’s Most Perfectly Developed Man. And I can change your body too!”

Friday the thirteenth and had scribbled “King Friday XIII’s b-day!”

—his voice was slow and thoughtful. He rarely used the word died or the term passed away but preferred to say “went to heaven,” underscoring the ultimate destination for God’s children.

Prayer is not only a daily discipline that deepens our relationship with God; it also provides a way for us to be together in our aloneness.

What is offered in faith by one person can be translated by the Holy Spirit into what the other person needs to hear and see.

there could be hope in growing up.

Once the viewers experienced that unconditional acceptance, Fred reasoned, they could grow from there.

His role was to provide the soil, and he relied on the Holy Spirit to turn it into holy ground.

Attached to the completion of her degree were some childhood fears about being the “smart girl” and some adult fears about the lovability of intelligent women: “Achieving meant being disliked and sometimes being hurt.”

but so is the ground between two people who pray for one another.

As winter draws near, the leaves no longer need to produce food, and the pigment chlorophyll, responsible for the green color of the leaves, disappears, displaying the colors that were there all along: red, yellow, orange.

Perhaps the greenness of youth is gone, but in its place is a wisdom that allows your true colors to be displayed. I believe you are just now entering a season when some of your talents, those still hidden in your heart, will begin to emerge. It is a season of incomparable beauty.”