Whenever I’m feeling I’m losing my way in the pursuit of kindness, Mister Fred Rogers (1928 – 2003) is one mentor I turn to. Here are a few Mister Rogers’ quotes and some of my own reflections about what they mean to me in terms of sharing the best of a common humanity.
“When I say it’s you I like, I’m talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.”
This is that eternal nature in all of us that cannot be threatened because it cannot be harmed. Yet so many are threatened because they have been harmed. Imagine living on earth as it were heaven.
When someone like Mister Rogers says, “It’s you I like,” we find ourselves feeling valued, appreciated, respected, worthy. Just for a moment like that it’s as if everything with the world is good. We’re called into such life, to live it and, wherever we can, to provide it.
“Part of the problem with the word ‘disabilities’ is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can’t feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren’t able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.”
Astonishingly sobering. To read this quote honestly is to understand we all have disabilities. Years ago, when I was dependent on alcohol, I replaced the need to feel by getting regularly inebriated. When I became sober, I had to learn how to feel all those emotions we’d rather avoid or deny.
Some disabilities we can’t overcome, but the disabilities stated above — many of them, and many people who are afflicted — can be overcome. We can all process disappointment, bitterness, betrayal, despair, hopelessness. We can learn the empowerment of feeling to overcome all these. We can all learn to accept there is injustice in this life.
“Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.”
Another very personal challenge. Imagine coming face-to-face with a person we don’t get along with, or someone with which we’ve got ‘history’ with — facing our baggage — and experiencing the momentary will to be kind and gracious with them and empathise.
In context with the above quote, we can only do this when we see them as they truly are — fallible no matter how much power they seem to wield. It’s easy to love the lovely. There is a time for us all to accept the unlovely just the way they are.
This doesn’t mean we allow ourselves to be vulnerable enough to be hurt, for we need to protect the untrustworthy person from themselves where we know them and where we can, but it is looking at them with the desire for what’s truly best for them.
We may naturally desire people would love us right here and now, but the point of this quote is it starts from us. When we start doing it, OUR hearts are being changed, WE are being blessed.
“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.”
Those who won’t or can’t do this never receive the healing they could otherwise have.
So much capacity for life is available when we’re simply courageous enough to be real.
It’s not rocket science, but it does require us to face those parts of us we’d prefer didn’t exist. The truth is these parts of us exist to liberate us to true and compelling eternal life.
“Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero to me.”
“The least of these,” as Jesus said, are who the Kingdom of God belong to.
There’s no better way to ‘bless God’ than keeping the genuinely powerless person safe — to look out for them, harming nobody else as a result.
We live in a world that places people other than those who care like this on a pedestal, but the truly admirable person is someone doing what pleases God without getting any accolades at all.
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