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

by Amy Hollingsworth

“Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.”

It’s no accident that each episode of Mister Rogers’Neighborhood opens with a shot of a traffic light flashing in yellow caution mode. That message is the essence of every episode: it’s time to slow down.

“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.

Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood led to an increase in “tolerance of delay,” meaning that children in the study who watched the program were more likely to be patient in waiting for materials or for an adult’s attention.4

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.

When a young viewer expressed concern about whether he regularly fed the fish—she was blind and couldn’t see him doing it—he quickly added a vocalization to his routine to assure her of each fish feeding.

He had that unique, transforming presence: Mother Teresa in a cardigan.

So perhaps the philosophers and politicians and poets are wrong; perhaps prayer isn’t a crutch or an old man’s bauble. Maybe it’s a necessity for both the strongest and the weakest among us.

The reason Fred “sometimes needed” the wooden arms in my dream—or cloth puppets with plastic faces and immovable mouths—was because as a child, they had provided a safe way for him to communicate how he felt. As an only child until age eleven and often sickly, he played alone much of the time. And as a sensitive child, he tried to find safe outlets for his feelings, especially the negative ones. Later he would counsel parents to allow their children to act out their feelings through puppets, as a way to bring some distance between the children and their difficult emotions.

There are many things that you can do when you’re angry that don’t hurt you or anybody else.”

Feelings that come out “sideways”—in disguised forms that are sometimes more symptomatic than the original feelings—are much harder to deal with.

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.

there is one thing that evil cannot stand, and that’s forgiveness.’

“It’s one of the toughest things in the world when somebody has hurt you, and you can find within yourself the strength to begin the whole process of forgiveness. And it turns out to be the gift to you, not so much the gift to the person you’re forgiving.”

you are special “by just your being you.”

In order to comfort others, to participate in the life of someone who is in deep grief, we need to know what it feels like to experience loss ourselves.

if reversible loss is like a broken arm, then catastrophic loss is more like an amputated limb.

I thought, Dad cried when his dad died. That certainly gave me broad license to cry when he died. And my sons saw me, and so when I die, I trust that they’ll know that it’s okay to cry too.” And of course they did. “You know, that’s a gift that can be passed on for generations,” he added, “the gift of knowing that it’s all right to express how you’re feeling.”

When your heart can cry another’s sadness, Then your heart is full of love.