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

by Amy Hollingsworth

Bob Faw said, “The real Mister Rogers never preached, [never] even mentioned God [on his show].” And then Faw added, “He never had to.”4 Indeed, 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.”

“And when you’re consoled (everyone eventually is consoled), you’ll be glad you’ve known me.”

And so, for me, being quiet and slow is being myself, and that is my gift. FRED ROGERS,

Hurriedness causes it to be hard and resistant. But taking time and going slow nurtures, or as he liked to say, “nourishes.”

“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.

“Amy, this may sound like a cop-out, but I watch so little television,” he apologized and then added firmly, “and I don’t mean to be elitist about that. There are members of my family who watch a lot of television and get a lot from it. But I would much rather read.

He taught me that taking one’s time, especially in relationships, allows the other person to know he or she is worth the time.

“Just as it takes a tree a long time to begin to grow again once it’s transplanted, so you can give your healthy roots time to find the nourishment of your new soil in your new community.”

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.

Of all his daily disciplines, the one that contributed most to this transforming presence was the one that began at five o’clock in the morning. Slowing down, taking time, and appreciating silence are all foundational aspects of the next toast stick he passed on to me: the importance of prayer. Each morning he prayed for his family and friends by name, still offering his gratitude for those on his list who had passed away.

“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.”

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.

“I’m so convinced that the space between the television set and the viewer is holy ground,” he told me on the set of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood in 1994. “And what we put on the television can, by the Holy Spirit, be translated into what this person needs to hear and see, and without that translation it’s all dross as far as I’m concerned.”

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’s intention was never to impose his beliefs on his viewers. Instead, he wanted to create an atmosphere, one that would allow viewers to feel safe and accepted. And that’s what Lauren felt. Once the viewers experienced that unconditional acceptance, Fred reasoned, they could grow from there. And that’s what Lauren did. Fred sometimes referred to his program as “tending soil.” His role was to provide the soil, and he relied on the Holy Spirit to turn it into holy ground.

Fred knew that even more important than the words themselves was the Spirit behind them.

I don’t think of myself as somebody who’s famous. I’m just a neighbor who comes and visits children; [I] happen to be on television. But I’ve always been myself. I never took a course in acting. I just figured that the best gift you could offer anybody is your honest self, and that’s what I’ve done for lots of years. And thanks for accepting me exactly as I am. FRED ROGERS’

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

“If the world could know that we don’t have to put people in concentration camps and annihilate people just because we’re angry with them. And the anger probably goes back for centuries. If we could just know that. “Well, you know, I’m passionate about that. I just feel that we need to help children from the earliest time to realize that there are ways that they can express how they feel, ways that aren’t hurtful.”

Writer and apologist C. S. Lewis isn’t known for his philosophy on self-esteem or his musings on the legitimacy of feelings, but he did make an observation about Christians and their relationship to Christ that I think Fred would agree with: “When they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.”7 Many people feel they must surrender their personalities in order to become more Christlike. But Lewis further pointed out that “the deepest likings and impulses of any man are the raw material, the starting-point, with which [Christ] has furnished him.”8 Surrendering our lives is not the same as relinquishing our God-given personalities. When we are in Christ, we will be more ourselves than ever. Encouraging others to be themselves, their honest selves, was the hallmark of Fred’s ministry here on earth. It was the best gift he could offer.

Know this: You should judge every person by his merits. Even someone who seems completely wicked, you must search and find that little speck of good, for in that place, he is not wicked. By this you will raise him up, and help him return to God. And you must also do this for yourself, finding your own good points, one after the other, and raising yourself up. This is how melodies are made, note after note. REBBE NACHMAN OF BRESLOV

At the center of Fred’s theology of loving your neighbor was this: Every person is made in the image of God, and for that reason alone, he or she is to be valued—“appreciated,” he liked to say. He believed there is sacredness in all creation—including fallen man—because of one Man, “the true light, which enlightens everyone” (John 1:9, NRSV).

“Some television programs are loud and scary, with people shooting and hitting each other. Well, you can do something about that. When you see scary television like that, you can turn it off. And when you do turn it off, that will show you that you are the strongest of them all. It takes a very strong person to be able to turn off scary TV.”

“The world needs to learn to know what to do with negative feelings,” he told me, explaining his motivation for writing the song. “It’s so easy to pick up a gun and shoot somebody. It’s so much healthier—and so much more dramatic—to work out something interpersonally with somebody and to come to a resolution that means weal in both people’s life.”

It is possible to see the best in our neighbor because of one thing: forgiveness. It’s possible to solve problems without machine guns because of one thing: forgiveness. That’s not a concept unique to the Neighborhood of Make-Believe but to the kingdom of God.

For Fred, this practical outworking of loving our neighbor—using not only our heart and eyes but our hands—is what defined a hero: “To see people who will notice a need in the world and do something about it, and rather than view it with despair they view it with hope—that to me is such an enormous gift in this life. Those are my heroes.

I sought out stories of other people who were poor in spirit, and I felt for them.”

Fred’s intense devotion to the disenfranchised, to the least of these, arose from the realization that he was one of them.

To make others feel more human, Fred sought to see their Maker in them and then to treat them accordingly.

The inner disciplines of taking time and of prayer, directed by the Holy Spirit, affect how we see others. To fully see others, we need to recognize who we are as individuals, love our neighbor as ourselves, and forgive often.

“Loss turns life into a snapshot. The movement stops; everything freezes.”

Author and religion professor Gerald Sittser wrote in his powerful treatise on grief, A Grace Disguised, that if reversible loss is like a broken arm, then catastrophic loss is more like an amputated limb.

“Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there; the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence.”

What is essential is invisible to the eye.

At Fred’s memorial service, we all stood and sang the first verse of his favorite hymn, William Walsham How’s “For All the Saints”: For all the saints who from their labors rest, Who Thee by faith before the world confessed, Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest. Alleluia! Alleluia! And then the fourth verse: Oh, blest communion, fellowship divine, We feebly struggle, they in glory shine; Yet all are one within your great design. Alleluia! Alleluia!

Because [our time on earth] is such a little part of all of life. It’s a wonderful part, it’s a sad part, it’s a joyous part, but it’s just one part.” And that one part can make an enormous difference in the lives of others, especially when we commit to a life of spiritual wholeness that’s represented by looking inward with our hearts (inner disciplines affect how we see others); looking outward with our eyes (how we see others affects how we treat others); and finally, by using what we’ve learned practically, with our hands.

Well, I would want [those] who were listening somehow to know that they had unique value, that there isn’t anybody in the whole world exactly like them and that there never has been and there never will be. And that they are loved by the Person who created them, in a unique way. If they could know that and really know it and have that behind their eyes, they could look with those eyes on their neighbor and realize, “My neighbor has unique value too; there’s never been anybody in the whole world like my neighbor, and there never will be.” If they could value that person—if they could love that person—in ways that we know that the Eternal loves us, then I would be very grateful.