THE DISCIPLINE OF FRED ROGERS
In 1 Corinthians 11:1 Paul wrote, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.” To the believers in the early church Paul served as a living example of what a Christian should look like. He recognized that the people needed a tangible example of a person to imitate. For many Christians, the idea of following Christ can be abstract and difficult. By attaching a face to Christianity we are able to grasp our faith in a more livable way. One such exemplar of the Christian faith for believers in the 20th century was Fred Rogers. He was known to most simply as Mr. Rogers, the humble host of a children’s program on public television. Mr. Rogers was a simple man with simple ideas that seemed to stand in stark contrast to the complex and fast paced world we live in. Mr. Rogers was a Christian whose influence is even to this day incalculable. He had a bachelor’s degree in music composition and attended seminary while working in television to earn his M.Div. The purpose of this paper is to explore the faith and practice of Fred Rogers to determine how he lived out his faith and how we can follow his example today.
Fred Rogers most famously hosted a television program called Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Many parents were amazed by the calming influence that Rogers had on their children. Part of this was due to the fact that Fred Rogers most clearly embodied the spiritual discipline of what might be categorized as unhurriedness. Rogers took time with everything he did. From the leisurely pace at which he changed his shoes and put on a cardigan to the way he spoke slowly and clearly, Rogers was not afraid of silence and space. In fact, Rogers considered “being slow” as his gift, and considered it a way to focus more inwardly on the spiritual depths of our personhood. As a society we are very time conscious today. We wear watches, fill our calendars with events and show up for appointments on time. The days of children in school are highly structured and organized. There is nothing inherently wrong with order. Indeed, God is a God of order. But along with this kind of time structure comes some constraints. The most challenging thing to Christians is the fact that we try to be more productive by cramming more events into our day and don’t leave much room to be flexible.
The story of Jesus healing the woman with the bleeding problem in Matthew 9 is in fact an interruption of another narrative in which Jesus is on his way to resurrect a girl who is dead. If Jesus had been in too much of a hurry he would have missed the opportunity God had for him. Much of the same can be said for us today. We are often too busy to take the time to pay attention to God working in us. Because of this we miss many opportunities. Rogers’ slower pace made him more available to God and a result more productive. Hollingsworth noted that, “the thing Fred Rogers shouted the loudest was silence.” Rogers’ understanding of silence and solitude was deeply influenced by the writing of a Christian author and his subsequent friendship with him. The disciplines he studied were not only for private devotion, but Rogers also applied the principles to his show and even his writing for parents. In one passage in a parenting book he addresses concerns parents have when their child seems to be alone during play times and he writes, “To some adults that doesn’t seem natural; however; it may be both natural and necessary… Until a child has developed a reasonably secure sense of self, playing with other children can quickly become over-stimulating. Self confidence grows best when children have time alone.” Rogers addressed a very practical concern that parents have while at the same time providing a developmental rationale for what could best be described as a spiritual discipline. It seems that if rhythms like this were taught to children at young ages they would be able to carry them into their spiritual lives as adults as well. It is likely that Rogers did in fact have this in mind. Part of his education was at the Graduate School of Child Development at the University of Pittsburgh where he worked closely for over twenty-five years with Dr. Margaret McFarland. She, along with Dr. Benjamin Spock and Erik Erikson were the founders of the Children’s Center there. Rogers would have been very familiar with Erikson’s stages of development and it showed in some of his correspondences with Madigan. In one letter he wrote, “Someone loved you early or otherwise I don’t see how you could be so loving now.” Rogers seems to have integrated his understanding of developmental psychology with his understanding of spirituality. Elsewhere he wrote, “Isn’t it amazing how much we bring of who we’ve been to whatever we do today?”
Not only did Rogers take his time but he was also disciplined about his schedule. He scheduled plenty of rest, sleeping from 9:30 p.m. to 5:00 a.m., and did roughly the same thing every day. Rogers’ pace and discipline had a direct effect on the children watching his show. Studies have also shown that children who watched his show were able to concentrate more and stay with one activity for longer periods of time. Rogers’ early morning routine consisted of Bible study, reflection, and even Taizé worship music taught to him by one of his friends. But most significantly was his practice of prayer. Rogers’ seemed to have truly lived out the idea of ceaseless prayer. Joan Chittister, writing about the Benedictine rule wrote that, “Consciousness of God is perpetual prayer.” We pray simply by becoming aware of God’s presence in our midst. Rogers prayed as he swam, as he worked and after he worked. His desire was to be tuned into God’s voice so that God’s word would shine through everything they produced on set. Hollingsworth says that, “Everything Fred Rogers did was a prelude to−or an outcome of−prayer.” Fred Rogers embodied the art of spiritual direction with the way he integrated prayer in his daily routine. As Eugene Peterson, a fellow Presbyterian minister, put it, “‘Pray for me’ is often a casual remark. The spiritual director gives it full attention.” Rogers gave his full attention to the people he encountered and simultaneously gave his full attention to the Holy Spirit. By doing so he entered into a place of prayer in the midst of every conversation.
Rogers’ prayer life consisted of praying for his friends and family but he was also known to invite other people to pray for the people in his life as well. Rogers invited Hollingsworth to join him in praying for his lifelong friend Jim Stumbaugh when he was dying from cancer. There are countless other stories just like this where Rogers would share prayer requests, often through handwritten letters. Often times people only regard prayer as an act of private devotion. Rogers, on the other hand, was keenly aware of the fact that if left to our own devices we will fail on our own. By inviting others to pray with him, he kept God’s presence continually before the people he communed with.
Perhaps the reason Rogers always had things to pray for was because he had a real gift for being fully present with people. By being present to people, he had unique access to their interior lives and knew how he could better pray for them. He wrote that, “The older I get, the more convinced I am that the space between communicating human beings can be hallowed ground.” For most people, the thing they noticed if they spent any length of time with Mr. Rogers, was that he took the time to be with them. In an interview with Jeanne Laskas, Rogers said, “I would love to be able to be present in every moment I have.” This statement seems to indicate something easily overlooked. Rogers not only has a natural gift for presence, but by his desire to be present in every moment, he indicates that it is something he works on. For him, it seems that presence was a spiritual discipline. To treat people in this way is to look beyond the surface of the person and listen for the person beneath. It is to look at each human as a uniquely created person bearing God’s image. Rogers loved a line from the book The Little Prince that’s translates in English as “What is essential is invisible to the eye.” The phrase helps place value on understanding a person’s inner being.
As the name of his program indicated, Rogers had a profound understanding of what it meant to be someone’s neighbor. Rogers wrote, “Listening is a very active awareness of the coming together of at least two lives. Listening, as far as I’m concerned, is certainly a prerequisite of love. One of the most essential ways of saying ‘I love you’ is by being a receptive listener.” In a world filled with countless forms of media to distract us, it is becoming increasingly hard to focus our attention fully on another person. Rogers did this well. Jesus was the master listener. By asking questions, and sometimes even keeping his identity a secret, Jesus provided opportunities and space for people to be heard. On the road to Emmaus, in Luke 24:17, Jesus asked the people walking, “What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?” Jesus asked about the content of their conversation, the situation before them, but while doing so, also highlighted their emotional state. He created space for them to answer his question and allowed them to talk about the issue and link that issue with the state of their interior.
Rogers also coupled his skill for listening with being slow to speak. James 1:19 says, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” Rogers quite literally spoke with a slow cadence, often preceded by silence, and chose each word carefully and skillfully. He understood the power and importance of words. This is especially true when speaking to people in places of vulnerability. Rogers wrote that, “Some things in life are especially hard to deal with, and especially hard to talk about, for adults as well as children. It seems that the most difficult things have to do with loss.” Rogers saw himself as a pastor to families through the medium of television. The words he shared about loss would be extremely influential.
On his program and in his writing Rogers talked about issues like divorce, death and tragedy. Tim Madigan, a friend of Mr. Rogers, explained that each time he shared about his interior life, Rogers responded with “supernatural love, wholly without judgment, and with perfect clarity, wisdom, and compassion.” All of Rogers’ skills seem to come together here. He was fully present and listened to the concerns presented and then he slowly and prayerfully offered up his caring response. When Madigan wrote to Rogers about going through divorce, Rogers response to him was filled with love and compassion saying that, “those who care about you are privileged to share your pain.” The spiritual “neighborhood” that Rogers occupied was one in which prayer was essential for holding one another up. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, while writing about the importance of prayer in community said that community, “lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses.” Rogers made sure that he prayed for the people in his life and then invited them to join him in praying for others. Many times there were people who didn’t know each other, but who were praying for on another because of Rogers. In doing this he connected people into the broader Christian community.
If there was one other spiritual discipline that seemed to permeate Mr. Rogers, it was humility. In the midst of all his accomplishments it would have been easy to take credit for his work or allow pride to settle in his heart, but he chose to live in humility and quietness, allowing God to receive the glory for all his work. He achieved this by and large by focusing on others more than himself. The majority of the letters he wrote to his friend Tim Madigan ended with a four-letter abbreviation that read: I.PO.Y. (I’m proud of you.) As the phrase indicates, Mr. Rogers played a fatherly role for many of the people he came into contact with. Part of his humility came across in the way he was always vulnerable. He wasn’t afraid to make mistakes and he wasn’t concerned with maintaining a perfect image. Hollingsworth wrote about moments where she felt, “embarrassed for him, like when he tried break dancing or the Charleston or was so wobbly on rollerskates that he almost fell.” He wasn’t afraid to do things that other people might laugh at because he wasn’t trying to maintain some kind of image. This was just one way that his humility manifested itself.
Few Christians have ever had the attention of a nation wide audience for as long as Rogers did. Every day he was invited into the homes of children across the country to impart to them God’s truth disguised in the ordinary. He gave many children their moral foundation and helped them develop into more competent individuals. By doing so, he was planting seeds. By teaching them a better way to live, he was making them more receptive to Jesus who was the basis for the lifestyle Fred Rogers imparted. His legacy and influence continue to speak volumes to us today. If there is anything we can learn from him now it would be to slow down, be fully present, listen, pray, speak slowly and live humbly. By doing so we can become a better neighbor to the people we encounter. Perhaps the greatest thing about Fred Rogers is that when we all get to heaven he will have the opportunity to live in the same neighborhood as him. When we finally live in God’s eternal kingdom it will truly be a beautiful day in the neighborhood!
Works Cited
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, and John W. Doberstein. Life together. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993. Print.
Chittister, Joan. Wisdom distilled from the daily: living the Rule of St. Benedict today. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991. Print.
Collins, Mark, and Margaret M. Kimmel. Mister Rogers' neighborhood: children, television, and Fred Rogers. Pittsburgh, Penn: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996. Print.
Hollingsworth, Amy. The simple faith of Mister Rogers: spiritual insights from the world's most beloved neighbor. Nashville, Tenn: Thomas Nelson, 2005. Print.
Madigan, Tim. I'm proud of you: my friendship with Fred Rogers. Los Angeles: Ubuntu Press, 2012. Print.
Peterson, Eugene H. Working the angles: the shape of pastoral integrity. Grand Rapids, Mich: W.B. Eerdmans, 1987. Print.
Rogers, Fred. The Mister Rogers parenting book: helping to understand your young child. Philadelphia: Running Press, 2002. Print.
Rogers, Fred. You are special: words of wisdom for all ages from a beloved neighbor. New York, N.Y: Penguin Books, 1995. Print.