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I think one of the greatest gifts that we can give anybody is the gift of one more honest adult in that person’s life—whether [the recipient] be a child or an adult.
“It seems to me, though,” Fred continued in response to my question, “that our world needs more time to wonder and to reflect about what is inside, and if we take time we can often go much deeper as far as our spiritual life is concerned than we can if there’s constant distraction. And often television gives such constant distraction—noise and fast-paced things—which doesn’t allow us to take time to explore the deeper levels of who we are—and who we can become.”
Fred Rogers was one of those who was very far advanced in the Lord’s service and who often employed the prayer of silence. It wasn’t just the absence of noise he advocated, but silence that reflects on the goodness of God, the goodness of what and whom He made. Silence to think about those who have helped us. He knew that silence leads to reflection, that reflection leads to appreciation, and that appreciation looks about for someone to thank: “I trust that they will thank God, for it is God who inspires and informs all that is nourishing and good,” he once said.
If we can learn to wait through the “natural silences” of life, he liked to say, we will be surprised by what awaits us on the other side.
“And finally we offer our strengths and our weaknesses, our joys and our sorrows to Your never-ending care. Help us to remember all through our lives that we never need to do difficult things alone, that Your presence is simply for the asking and our ultimate future is assured by Your unselfish love. In our deepest gratitude we offer this prayer. Amen.”
By now I wonder if there has been a decision about your move. Please know that I’ve been thinking about you all. All that matters is your motives. God will lead the way. You know that.
In the same letter where he first requested prayer for Jim, Fred had also photocopied a lengthy quote from Gerald May’s Will and Spirit. This part he put a star and an arrow next to: “There are some things that are eternally reserved in privacy between the individual soul and the Creator. There is a dimension of delicate pain in this, but even in our aloneness we are together, for we each have it.”
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.
dross as far as I’m concerned.” An old supply pastor, many years before, had taught him that: 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. The space between them is holy ground, and the Holy Spirit uses that space in ways that not only translate, but transcend.
Fred rightly reasoned that if we accept ourselves we are better equipped to accept our neighbor. So accepting ourselves is always the starting point to something greater—a deeper maturity, a deeper walk with the Lord, and ultimately, a greater acceptance and understanding of our neighbor. This is the first of the toast sticks for the eyes: How we see ourselves affects how we see others.
“I said, ‘Dr. Orr, you know in that verse, it says something about—how does it go?—“The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him,” and then it goes on, and then at the very end of that verse it says, “One little word shall fell him.”’ “I said, ‘Dr. Orr, what is that one little word that would wipe out the prince of darkness, fell him?’ “He thought for a moment, and said, ‘Forgiveness. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.’ He said, ‘You know, Fred, there is one thing that evil cannot stand, and that’s forgiveness.’ That’s meant the world to me.”
When he died three months later, he was ready. Part of his preparation had been a visit from Fred’s dear friend Henri Nouwen, who visited the Cardinal and counseled him to look upon death as a friend, as a transition from this life to eternal life. The Cardinal never suspected that this “transition” would occur for Henri before himself; Henri died suddenly of a heart attack a short time later.
“The tough times I’ve been through . . . turned out to be times in which God’s presence was so clear—so real that it felt like Mrs. Stewart opening her door and taking me into her safe home.”
At last I had it: Fred’s intense devotion to the disenfranchised, to the least of these, arose from the realization that he was one of them.
“When I think about heaven,” he said, “it is a state in which we are so greatly loved that there is no fear and doubt and disillusionment and anxiety. It is where people really do look at you with those eyes of Jesus.”1 Eyes that see what is wonderful about our neighbor. Eyes that can see the invisible, the essential in one another.
