Mr. Rogers was easy to make fun of. Even a person like me, without a talent for mimicry, could have parodied his words and actions. “Won’t you be my neighbor?” could be made to sound mawkish. And his ritual taking off his jacket and outdoor shoes, then putting on a sweater and sneakers, might have been held up to ridicule.
In fact, comedians on television did sometimes parody Mr. Rogers. However, he was obviously too genuine a person for them to do so with any ill feeling.
After his recent death, the best thing said of him was that he was just as fine a person off screen as he appeared to be on his program. Apparently, his private personality was identical with the TV persona that reached milllions.
In these times, when public image seems far more powerful than private character, the authenticity of Fred Rogers comes as a morale booster. Unless the nation has been terribly taken in, this man was the real thing.
His spirituality goes far to explain why he was able to maintain his personal qualities throughout a television career that lasted almost 50 years. His custom was to rise before five in the morning and then devote two hours to prayer and spiritual reading. In an interview with Kim Shippey, a Christian Science writer, in 2000, he offered more detail: “I read a chapter from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament, and inspirational works by many other writers.”
But Fred Rogers did not conclude his devotions after his morning session. “All day long I offer prayers of gratitude to God for God’s goodness,” he told Ms. Shippey. “I’ll be driving along and I’ll see something and I’ll just say, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’”
Of course this Presbyterian minister was well schooled in the Bible. In his seminary courses he had received training about the sacred scriptures of the Jewish and Christian faiths. But not everybody who studies scripture makes it an integral part of his or her lifestyle. Fred Rogers internalized it so that the Bible fed his soul each day.
What always impressed me about Mr. Rogers was the love he manifested toward each child who appeared on his program and each child in his television audience. Making the kid feel good about who he or she was went far beyond mere self-esteem therapy. For Mr. Rogers it was a recognition of the human being as God’s handiwork.
Subtly Fred Rogers was doing his own form of ministry. In the television age he had discovered a new way to extend the Lord’s good news to the children of America. No wonder that the day after he died, the student newspaper at our local university reported that students were mourning his loss.
When they were growing up, most of them at least, this television personality had been one of their most familiar teachers and they now missed him. It’s true that most children would outgrow him. At a certain point in their development some would become embarrassed if caught still watching him. But later on they might recognize the unique contribution he had made to their lives.
That contribution rests on the skillful way he taught them the most important things about life. He was an educator in the classic sense of someone who was committed to inculcating values, rather than just facts. What a contrast he made with the Saturday morning cartoons that were typical television fare for so many children!
One of the values most prominent in his programs was human diversity. By treating everyone with respect, no matter their color or origins, this man taught children and other viewers, whatever their age, that each human being deserves to be treated with respect and love.
Yes, many older people watched “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.” Of them, he told his interviewer: “There are those who have said to me, ‘I watched your program on such-and-such a day, and you said exactly what I needed to hear.” And I look back at the videotapes and find that wasn’t what I said at all. I think people hear what they are spiritually ready to hear.”
Others may wish to quarrel with me but I believe Fred Rogers to have been a saint for our times.
Richard Griffin