I LIKE YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE. 11/22/20

You might think I am obsessed with Mr. Rogers, and you’d be right. My obsession isn’t pathological but spiritual—something this secular world might consider pathological anyway.

My “Rogerian” focus is broad and deep, perhaps global. I think the late Fred Rogers is an icon for our time. An icon is an image through which we see the glory of God, aka divinity. It’s only a glimpse, but when you see it you recognize it. The early Christian bishop, Irenaeus of Lyons (130-202 CE), pictured below, best summarized such spirituality this way:                       

                  The Glory of God is the human person fully alive.

But this post isn’t about Irenaeus; it is about Fred McFeely Rogers (b.1928, Latrobe, PA.) who embodied Irenaeus’s theology:
    -not because he happened to be an ordained Presbyterian minister who had attended Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, spoke Greek and Hebrew, and in time graduated magna cum laude with a specialty in musical composition from the University of Pittsburgh
    -not because he was strictly religious or doctrinaire: You don’t have to speak overtly about religion in order to get a message across. He knew there were “terrifying ideas in all religions.”
    -not because he loved children so much
    -not because he became famous for his work in public television for children, won many awards and honorary degrees including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by President George W. Bush in 2002
    -not because he took daily naps, stayed fit, maintaining his weight at 143 all his 74 years
    -not because he never smoked or drank
    -not because he was a registered Republican, which some folks think is godly these days
    -not even because he was a vegetarian: I couldn’t eat anything that had had a mother, he'd say.

Rogers reflected the glory of God because he was a person fully alive—and imperfect:
    -because he had a difficult childhood, spending many hours at home because of asthma
    -because he had many stuffed animals who helped him make friends with himself
    -because he learned to play the piano at age 5, and followed this passion to get a degree
    -because his personality was introverted and shy
    -because he was bullied in early school for being overweight, called Fat Freddy, and made to feel “very sad”   
    -because he was resilient and blossomed in high school to pursue his early passion for music, eventually marrying a fellow student Sara Joanne Byrd with whom he played dual pianos and who became the puppet Sara Saturday on Mr. Rogers’s Neighborhood
    -because he would get perfectionistic about his show and cranky, as he did over the arrival of the educational television show for children called Sesame Street. It was competition and he didn’t like it, probably because it was too teacherish.   
    -because he struggled all his life with anger and self-hate
    -because he hated television, yet when he discovered an old television at his parents’ home in 1951, he exclaimed: There must be some way to use this fabulous instrument to nurture those who would watch and listen.” This “aha!” moment shaped his career in public television.
    -because he insisted on a private funeral in 2003 in a chapel in Latrobe for family and friends to have some protected time for their own grief.  There was a public ceremony later at which violinist Yitzkak Rabin, cellist Yoyo Ma, and organist Alan Morrison played, for 2700 people who mourned this humble hero fully alive in their hearts
    -because his mother knitted all his sweaters, including the famous red, front-zippered one he wore on his daily television show, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. Tom Hanks, who played Mr. Rogers in the current movie, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” had difficulty managing Rogers’s nightly entrance into his “neighborhood”—grabbing the red sweater, zipping it up, spit spat like that, removing his shoes, flipping one shoe into his free hand, then donning sneakers, ready to play with puppets and charm his young audience, nightly from 1968 to 2001.
    -because he was an avid swimmer of laps, saying that this and the piano gave him a chance to feel capable and in charge. Swimming was his most important self-discipline.
    -because as a boy Fred Rogers saw scary things in the news and never forgot the advice his mother gave him: Look for the helpers. you will always find people who are helping.
    -because, despite his lifelong dedication to the psychological and moral well-being of children’s emotions about painful life challenges like divorce, sibling rivalry, death, Rogers ably directed his energy to adult politicians when he testified before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Communications on May 1, 1969. His testimony enchanted the Senators charged with eliminating government funding for public television for children. He closed his testimony singing a song he wrote for his own show: “What Do You Do With The Mad That You Feel?”  

Guess who got the funding? And guess who left the hearing feeling fully alive—divinely so?

I think Rogers is an icon for this time, this 2020 year,
    -because he listened attentively—present physically and emotionally to every single child, kneeling to be on their level,
    -because he said over and over: “I like you just the way you are.”   
    -because he prayed— regularly and no matter what
    -because journalist Tom Junod said of Rogers: “It was very hard to interview him because he just wanted to focus on me and who I was and my feelings.”
    -because when asked what he thought Mr. Rogers wanted him to do, Junod said: “Oh, I think he wanted me to pray.”  
                                              *  *  *  *
Tomorrow is the 34th anniversary of my marriage to Richard J. Simeone, brother priest, mentor, friend and companion-in-cranky. Above our sleeping bed hangs the wisdom of old Irenaeus.  
    
               The Glory of God is the human person fully alive.

 
I like you, Dick, just the way you are—whether asleep or awake. Some days I don’t love your every way, but I always like you just the way you are.

And to us all: Let’s try to be a little bit like Mr. Rogers in our own neighborhoods—every day.

2019.12.08 You Do Not Have To Believe In God To Pray, Do You?

The Advent season is paradoxical. It’s full of darkness and ominous warnings about endings—of the world, of human lives, of our whole planet in peril. Simultaneously, Advent also offers stunningly compelling images of light—the light of a single matchstick struck to brighten a small space, the light of a single candle passed around to light other candles, the pierce of a single note or voice, calling now and over time for people to look and see and expect.

Such Advent chiaroscuro is just enough to hold a community at worship, or at war, in thrilled suspension for mere seconds. That’s when you hold your breath and breathe. That’s when you murmur, Oh my God, and you don’t know why, but you think it might be prayer.

Once upon a time, a little boy loved a stuffed animal whose name was Old Rabbit. It was so old, in fact, that it was really an unstuffed animal; so old that even back then, with the little boy's brain still nice and fresh, he had no memory of it as "Young Rabbit," or even "Rabbit"; so old that Old Rabbit was barely a rabbit at all but rather a greasy hunk of skin without eyes and ears, with a single red stitch where its tongue used to be. The little boy didn't know why he loved Old Rabbit; he just did, and the night he threw it out the car window was the night he learned how to pray. He would grow up to become a great prayer, this little boy, but only intermittently, only fitfully, praying only when fear and desperation drove him to it, and the night he threw Old Rabbit into the darkness was the night that set the pattern, the night that taught him how. He prayed for Old Rabbit's safe return, and when, hours later, his mother and father came home with the filthy, precious strip of rabbity roadkill, he learned not only that prayers are sometimes answered but also the kind of severe effort they entail, the kind of endless frantic summoning. And so when he threw Old Rabbit out the car window the next time, it was gone for good.

So begins the article “Can You Say  . . . Hero?” by Tom Junod, originally published in the November, 1998 issue of Esquire Magazine.  The current popular movie, “It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” is the story of Mr. Rogers and Tom Junod and Old Rabbit—and a lot more. Junod is a writer who was assigned to interview Fred Rogers, hero of children’s television and originator of the show for young children: “Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.”

The most wonderful thing about the late Fred Rogers and his show was not its popularity, but the fact that so far no one—no one—has been able to prove that Mr. Rogers was not really, in true life that is, as nice as the person he created for his show, a person who welcomed everyone equally with a smile into his make-believe neighborhood, who spent time listening to each child no matter how off schedule the filming of his show got, and who consistently embodied his message: “I like you just the way you are.”  Oh my God! 

It was all an act of course, wasn’t it?

Tom Junod was grumpy about being assigned the task of interviewing Mr. Rogers for a series on heroes. Junod was cynical, skeptical, and irritated. He wanted some “hot shot hero” to interview, someone who was a REAL hero, not a schmaltzy kiddie show host. And on top of all that the editor of Esquire only gave him 400 words. Reluctantly, Junod did his job. He hung out at the edges of the make-believe neighborhood to meet this make-believe man, this silly non-hero. He hovered in the darkened gloom of the studio and watched, scribbling notes on and off. He intended to create something passably publishable and do it with haste. Gradually, Junod edged from the darkness into the light of Rogers’s soft voice and the paradoxical truth of actually being liked just as he was—mile-high shoulder chip and all. Here is Junod with Mr. Rogers.

No, Tom Junod did not learn to pray, although that was something Mr. Rogers did regularly, and in one scene Rogers, played by Tom Hanks, called the entire theater audience into a silence—just a short moment. We all became a prayer—all at once one, not a sound. No, Junod did not have a religious conversion or suddenly proclaim the glory of God.  No, he did not say Oh my God out loud. And no, he did not write a paean to a lost beloved rabbit—not really.

Such a mixed-up experience is a bit like Advent. We move slowly and uncertainly to let in a little bit of light and hope at a time, just inches at a time. We do not magically transform our darkness of mood or circumstance into light. Nor do we change our personality any more than Junod did, but we do begin to live allowing light and dark to meet each other, to co-exist, neither one compromising the other.

You could say this is what being really nice and really real is all about. Oh my God.

2013.08.18 Madaket Millie

2013.08.18  Madaket Milie

A Spiritual Lemon, as most of you know, is my sweet ‘n sour term for any person, place or thing that most people assume to be sour but that is really blessed with a special sweetness.

Madaket Millie is one such Spiritual Lemon. Here she is on one of her 80 birthdays, a local hero and legend.


Millie was Mildred Jewett, born in 1907 on Nantucket and moved to her grandmother’s farm in Madaket, the western end of the island in 1911. Millie was fascinated by the sea and would sit on top of her house gazing out to sea for hours. She became known as the “Protector of the West End” and called herself the “seaside sentinel.”

Her well trained eye earned her a vocation patrolling the beaches during World War II, watching for shipwrecks, and training German Shepard dogs for patrol duty for all branches of the military service. The Coast Guard was Millie's favorite branch, her “family.” Millie was awarded the highest honorary civilian rank, Coast Guard West End Command.

Millie had a gruff, grim, sour countenance and a sweet heart that loved animals, especially dogs, sold ice cream, and helped anyone in need. She greeted natives and visitors alike and called tourists “mop heads” because of the noisy contraptions they rode around. . . . mopeds.

Millie developed a close friendship with Mr. Rogers who had a home on Nantucket and couldn’t have been more cheery-faced to Millie’s curmudgeonly dourness. The two made a film together, and when they were around it was indeed a “wonderful day in the neighborhood.”


One summer day some 30 years ago my son John and his cousin ran into Millie near her tiny house in Madaket on the west end of Nantucket Island, MA. “What are you boy doing snooping around here?” Millie growled. The young boys arrived home breathless and terrified. On another occasion they met Mr. Rogers and ran home their eyes like saucers, breathless with celebrity-wonder.

Millie and Fred (above) stand in front of Millie’s cottage—the perfect picture of spiritual wholeness.

Today there is a terrific, informal restaurant near the west end beach in Madaket. After several incarnations that haven't lasted the name Millie's has taken hold. If this establishment is as resilient as its namesake it will thrive as long as the seas allow.

Somehow I imagine the ghost of Millie commanding the waters to back off and let this dear land live.