MISTER ROGERS
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about Mr. Rogers. Tom Hanks' new movie, "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood," prompts us to stop and reconsider what Mr. Rogers meant to us and still means to us and the society in which we live. I have not seen the movie yet, but will at my first opportunity.
One point of interest I have in Mr. Rogers comes from my own career. For years, my college students often called me "Mr. Rogers" and would sometimes sing the theme song as we started class. It always delighted me. After I retired from teaching, I forgot about that for a long time. Then, just a couple of months ago, I was in an elevator. It stopped on a floor, the doors opened, and three middle-aged women I had never seen before were standing there. They took one look at me and started singing "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood..." (they knew all the words). We all had a good laugh. I love being compared to Mr. Rogers. There is no one to whom I would rather be compared. But alas, in reality my resemblance to Mr. Rogers is only superficial. I have nowhere near the natural goodness of that man.
Fred Rogers died sixteen years ago, at the age of seventy-four. Yet, he is more popular now than when he was physically alive. I am asking myself, Why is this? There is a long list of books, programs, movies and the like remembering this singular man. Moreover, the interest seems to be ever-growing. So, my question is, Why are we becoming more and more attached to the memory of Mr. Rogers?
It would take sociologists and psychologists to explain it all to us, but my unscientific theory is that we are starving for his simple kind of goodness. The American people as a whole want decency, compassion, honesty, acceptance, peace, and love, old-fashioned virtues that seem to be slipping away in modern culture. The president of the United States and many of the people around him are the opposite of Mr. Rogers. This is the most corrupt presidential administration in history. So much of what our national leadership stands for and works for is the opposite of Mr. Rogers' goodness. We see an administration of indecency, hate, discrimination, division, and personal destruction, sometimes to the point of stoking violence. These are people who "win" by diminishing and destroying others (the impeachment hearings of the last two weeks have magnified this point). There appears to be no moral and ethical compass. When the president says he has done nothing wrong, he believes it because he does not understand what wrong is under the terms of the Constitution. Truth and untruth seem to have lost definition. The Washington Post has catalogued 10,000 lies the president has told the American people. In the age of Trump, most Americans are starving for public leaders who stand for honor, morality, compassion, kindness, and toleration and who will champion those good and democratic values in our public life.
To be sure, both political parties have contributed to our disappointment of leadership. Bill Clinton defiled the West Wing with an extra-marital sexual affair and then lied about it. George Bush insisted we had to attack Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction, another lie. Barack Obama promised "change" and failed to deliver much, albeit through no fault of his own. One after another our chosen leaders have failed us in one way or another.
To be sure, both political parties have contributed to our disappointment of leadership. Bill Clinton defiled the West Wing with an extra-marital sexual affair and then lied about it. George Bush insisted we had to attack Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction, another lie. Barack Obama promised "change" and failed to deliver much, albeit through no fault of his own. One after another our chosen leaders have failed us in one way or another.
So, this is my theory about the popularity of Mr. Rogers. We as a society long for public leaders with the innate decency and goodness that people like Fred Rogers displayed so wonderfully in their public lives. Recently someone asked Mrs. Rogers what Fred would think of the Trump administration's separation of children from their parents at the border. She said it would break his heart. It breaks our hearts too because Mr. Rogers taught us every day in 900 recorded episodes to love one another without condition, just as we are. That is the basic goodness we all yearn for and grasp as we cling evermore desperately to the memory of a simple yet remarkable man who showed us all so publicly and so well how to live out the gospel of love for God and love for neighbor.
