One Minute at a Time: Mr Roger’s Spiritual Gift

 

Matthew 14: 22-23

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. 

Halfway to Silence

By May Sarton (one of Mr. Roger’s favorite poets and a poem she read on his program)

I was halfway to silence

Halfway to land’s end

When I heard your voice.

Shall I take you with me?

Shall we go together?

All the way to silence,

All the way to land’s end?

Is there a choice?

Reflection One Minute at a Time: Mr Roger’s Spiritual Gift 

by: Rev. Debra McKnight

Perhaps you remember Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood? Perhaps you longed for a closet of sweaters and imagined changing your shoes at the door? Maybe you watched it growing up, maybe your kids watched it - or maybe you are like me and watched Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood thinking this tamed Tiger, X the Owl and King Friday seemed oh so familiar only to realize that they were. Mr. Rogers created a landmark program with a singular focus of caring for children, understanding their development, honoring their feelings and inspiring the best in all of us. And Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood was a further iteration of his work, passion and care. 

Fred Rogers began every program the same way: a yellow flashing street light, changing to a comfy sweater, singing the same song. He started every broadcast with this same ritual and it launched him into hard topics. His very first national broadcast involved King Friday building a wall to keep the changers out. He cared so much about children that he wanted them to know how to make peace. He explained the hard words like assassination and spent a week on programming about death and divorce. He broached every topic we hesitate to talk about with grown-ups. He wrote scripts, produced the show, wrote the songs and learned and studied with the best in child development along the way. He relentlessly pursued the creation of sacred space where the best in humanity could be honored and developed - and I believe he did this grounded in his faith. 

Rogers, arguably a busy man, made time for silence and space for God. He fiercely guarded his quiet space and honored the spiritual disciplines that gave him life. Before he changed a single sweater or tied one shoe, he woke every day at 5:00am and checked his twitter, scanned his email and read the newspaper. I’m kidding, that is not what he did first or ever, rather into the silence he prayed the names of friends and family out loud. He filled his first moments of the day with the names of people he loved. 

He prepared to swim, every day moving his body through the water and just before diving in he sang a song from Taizé. One of his spiritual mentors and friends, Henri Nouwen, shared the wisdom of Taizé, a protestant monastic community in France that centers worship on singing simple songs and honoring silence. Every morning his ritual invoked the wisdom of his spiritual neighborhood, even as he alone dove into the water singing “Rejoice in the Lord.” After his swim he changed for the day and weighed himself at 143 pounds…every day of his life (now that is discipline!). Leaving the pool, he walked into the studio and at the door he prayed, “Dear God let some word that is heard be yours.”  

He was intentional and driven but frenzied and hurried, “Being quiet and slow is being myself, and that is my gift.” Even the pace of his cadence was slow and one late night talk show host was surprised to find Fred Rogers to be true to life, and Mr. Rogers ever gently named the feelings and gave permission for Johnny Carson to laugh (Tonight Show, 1980). Being slow was his gift. You the partner in conversation, you were worth the time. He made space for time on his show, not only in the ritual of each broadcast but exploring fast and slow, he countered the world bias toward action. His half hour was simple and slow, making space in one broadcast for everyone to see what a minute feels like by setting an egg timer for one minute in what would have been considered dead air for another producer. Silence was sacred space, not dead air. In one broadcast, a scientist was helping the neighborhood and all of us hear some fish…apparently noisy fish and even though they had everything set, people and equipment in place and the food to help invite the fish...well, it just didn’t work out. The scientist got nervous…like any of us would…filling the ‘dead air time…”well I’m sure they will be ready in just a moment” or “I guess these fish are not very hungry.” But Fred saw this as a chance to be patient. He believed, “Development comes from within. Nature does not hurry but advances slowly.” He slowed things down and it was his gift. Researchers found its impact; children watching Mr. Rogers had a higher “tolerance of delay”; they could wait and were more patient…perhaps less tugging to get Mom or Dad’s attention (Friedich and Stein, 1973). 

We are tuned to action. We tell the stories and they start with “You won’t believe what happened...” or “we were doing this or going here when….” Our stories are actions. We have, as Mr. Roger’s suggests, “a bias toward action.” Even if the silence and the stillness makes all of the action possible…we tend not to talk about it. We never talk about gas stations, unless there is some wild and irregular event but they are essential to getting us and our cars where we want to be. Spiritual formation is the fuel in our day, the energy for our destination. And maybe it only takes a few moments but it is essential. 

Our scripture tells a similar story. Jesus learns from those who went before, sensing God in the still small voice or burning in a bush. If you take a moment to look at Matthew chapter 14 and your study Bible happens to be like some of mine…it will give you big headlines. In this chapter, you find Jesus feeding 5,000, then walking on water and offering healing. This verse about Jesus dismissing the crowd and going up to pray alone is almost lost in the dramatic, big loud lines. Jesus has gathered thousands of people, teaches them to break bread and suddenly a small offering turns into bread for everyone, everyone…I believe becomes a neighbor and shares the food they have and there is more than enough. Jesus sends the disciples off in a boat and dismisses the crowds and goes off to pray, alone in the silence and connecting deeply with God. I sometimes wonder if we would even have this line if it wasn’t so essential for what happens next. Jesus approaching the weary disciples as they sense him coming to them from across the water. But these two little verses deserve a big highlight. They remind us of Jesus pausing, being still and appreciating silent places. I would argue that it fuels his work; the big headlines and the wow moments are impossible without this sacred pause. 

Perhaps you, like me, struggle with taking a pause. Spiritual Formation feels so serious and so separate, like we must take a retreat at the mountains or walk the El Camino across Spain…maybe on our knees. Perhaps a month long retreat in a quite monastery isn’t in the cards but maybe one minute could be. One minute, carve out one minute at a time. One minute, just like Mr. Rogers taught us. We don’t have to make spiritual formation impossibility hard, we need it make ordinary; constant little methods to shape our day, our presence and our heart. Maybe there is space for a little intention? Perhaps as you enter the door of your house you could say a prayer of blessing and gratitude, to set the intention for the space and your time in it. When the Abbey is in full swing, we say welcome as folks enter the space, not just hi but welcome and in my mind I say, “Thank God.” It helps reset my thinking and remind me that this guest is sacred and not an interruption of the other work in which I was engaged. Maybe we are not going to many places right now but perhaps a breath before your next Zoom or call, a deep breath, a pause for gratitude for another or a pause to claim how you want to show up, might just make us all a little better at being present with each other. Maybe you could try praying for your neighborhood as you walk your block or a mantra as you step forward that we might all step forward in love. 

What a difference a pause might make. Consider it? That sacred silence, that pause pregnant with possibilities - it is yours to fuel the next big headline of the day. Fred Rogers offered this reminder to the broadcasting community as he accepted an award: “It seems to me, though, that our world needs more time to wonder and to reflect about what is inside, and if we take time we can often go much deeper as far as our spiritual life is concerned than we can if there’s constant distraction.”  And he leaves us with this: “that place of quiet rest where the real you can be ultimately found.”

May we have the courage to seek out our quiet places, our deepest being and value silence. May it be so. Amen.

Questions for Reflection

Look at the poetry, the scripture and the lyrics to Easy Silence by The Chicks.

What strikes you about silence? What description stands out or finds a place in you?

What do you do to be refreshed?

What stops you? How do you know when you need it? What can you do to make that space for yourself?

Mr. Rogers: Divine Spark

1 Corinthians 1:25

For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.  God is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

 

Divine Spark
 - Reflection by Rev. Debra McKnight
This is Fred Roger’s favorite scripture. He trained in a Presbyterian seminary and I like to imagine how he listened to the scripture where Paul is reminding the folks in his church what it means to be a Christian.  There is trouble in Corinth and Paul, like any founding pastor, is writing to the church and urging them to make a little course correction; it’s the first ‘Come to Jesus meeting.’ We might imagine it like a Bishop sending an e-mail to a local church pastor…not that I would know anything about that.  Paul is railing against the status quo and inviting people to explore a different kind of power. Power the world sees as weak, nobility that is not by birth. Though it may sound like he is anti-wisdom, Paul is not, but he is anti-using wisdom to make other people feel small in your church community. The Gospel’s power is different. God chooses what is weak, God chooses what is lowly, God…so inconveniently does not care about our power systems…like noble birth or our certificates that make us wise. God’s power is different. God does not conform to our boxes or measure with our tools. 


This was one of Fred Rogers’ favorite passages. And I like to imagine myself in his shoes or perhaps in his cozy sweater reading it, God choosing what is weak, foolish, despised by the world. I imagine him reading it slow and steady remembering God’s values were different from the loud, fast, domination seeking world around him.  He seems to embody this sense of God’s love made present, countering the norms and measures of the world. I wonder if this is why he is so empowered to break down boundaries created by the world. One of his puppets, Lady Elaine, whose features bear no resemblance to Barbie, was tired of being a Lady. Fred was sure to make space for children to get beyond the boxes and boundaries of the world. He modeled men doing domestic work and he showed women doing work that the world around him would have deemed masculine. He made space for everyone to nurture and love, everyone to be strong and courageous, and he sang, “It’s you I like” to bring the point home. Rogers himself embodied this push on boundaries or at least the ways we struggle with his identity. There was not much about the man that seemed very “manly.” His face was soft, his body was not imposing or intimidating, he spoke slowly, he listened deeply, and he cared about children with every pulse of his being. We are so uncomfortable with Mr. Rogers being himself, that the internet is full of “fake news.” Like, by day he was a kind neighbor and by night, the Navy Seals are dropping him into rivers, knife clenched in his teeth, for some special operation. It is like we cannot accept that a heterosexual, cis-gender, white male is kind and gentle and loves children enough to devote his learning and gifts to their care. If you saw the documentaries, you saw this question play out even further in the question of if Fred Rogers was gay. He was so nice, he must be gay. But the truth is, he was just himself. He was kind, he was loving, and the norms of the day couldn’t stop him from being who he was and he wanted us to know it should not stop us either.  


He believed we were extraordinary and ordinary at the same time, that we were lit with the Divine Spark of God, and it all boiled down to longing to be loved and longing to show love. This is where his Presbyterian roots showed the influences of Henri Nouwen and the Quakers. Rogers wrote, “Deep within each of us is a spark of the divine just waiting to be used to light up a dark place.” (Fred Rogers, Life’s Journeys according to Mister Rogers: Things to Remember along the Way, p 58).


We give expression to the divine spark by reflecting and enacting God’s desire to accept all people just as they are (Michael Long, Peaceful Neighbor, p34). Roger’s wrote, when we love a person we accept a person exactly as s/he is, lovely and unlovely, strong along with the fearful. He experienced teasing as a child, being called, “Fat Freddy,” chased home and broken hearted at the taunting. But at the same time there were adults who told him of his worth and value, adults like his Grandfather, Fred McFeely (remember Mr. McFeely?) who ended every visit with Fred by saying, “You made this day special by just your being you.” This became the phrase that rang out at the close of every episode and his dream of teaching that gave hope children feeling un-special by the world’s standards. 


Employing the divine spark means helping others grow and be accepted just as they are (Long, p 34). Fred’s grandfather told him he was special and also told him he was capable of growth, encouraged him to climb past boundaries and over obstacles to reach his dreams. Rogers wanted that for all of us, to be grateful for new learnings, to know we can grow from love. When he studied about our development he learned and taught that we learn to smile by watching people smile, we learn to talk when people talk with us, we are smiled into smiling, we are chatted into chatting, we are loved into loving. This is how we grow, this is how we love others and fan the flame of their divine spark.  


Using the Divine Spark means seeking to identify with and understand those who hurt us (Long, p 35). This may be more of a challenge to do than to read, particularly as we read the comments online in this political cycle. Identifying with people who hurt us draws us closer to them and to ourselves, not truly good or totally evil but a life of complicated choices, egos and shadows. His church was vandalized once and he spoke these words, “Once we see ourselves as hoodlums, we can have compassion for our brother-hoodlums and be amazed over and over that God would take us all in” (Long p 35).


Reflecting the Divine Spark means forgiving those who do not accept us as we are or make wrongful choices (Long, 35). Rogers stayed connected to a beloved professor, Robert Orr. One day, visiting his professor in the nursing home, they were looking at an old hymn that suggested there was one word that could fall the prince of darkness or forces of evil. Rogers asked his professor what he thought that word was…and he said Forgiveness (Amy Wollingsworth, The simple Faith of Mister Rogers, p 98). Forgiveness, he held was liberating and holy. Perhaps you remember the story of Esau and Jacob, the brothers always in conflict? After years of betrayal and time apart, Jacob returns home to face the brother he wronged and rather than vengeance, Esau embraced his brother and forgave him. Jacob’s response: “I have seen the face of God.” This moment of forgiveness was liberating for both brothers and it stopped a cycle of violence (Genesis 32-33). 


We reveal the divine spark by ensuring that our love is constant across the ages. Rogers saw his father care for people over the long course of their relationships and even after their business partnerships were no longer active. He believed we saw something powerful when people are in a relationship for the long term and beyond personal needs. He often told the story of a Seattle Special Olympics. Nine athletes were about to run the 100 yard dash. When the official started the race, one child stumbled and the other’s hearing the cries of the one boy, ran back to him, helped him up, linked arms, and ran the race together. They won the cheers of the crowd and Rogers said, “what really matters is helping others win, too, even if it means showing down and changing our course now and then” (Long, pg. 37).


Using the divine spark means seeing all under the care of God (Long, p37). The boundaries of the day did not stand in the way of God’s love and Fred felt called to help us all see one another as sacred. The big boundary of his day was the Cold War, and he did special work to help American families see how much they had in common with families around the globe. He even exchanged time with a Russian children’s program host.


Finally, and most challenging, is that the divine spark requires us to offer all six of these elements to ourselves; to see ourselves as holy, to extend understanding and forgiveness to ourselves, to care for ourselves and our growth, just like God does. Perhaps this is why this theology is so challenging. We get really good at singing songs about our unworthiness in the face of God; we love amazing grace that saved a wretch like me. But there are so few moments in song or prayer where we claim our worth, beauty and value. We sing praise to God but struggle to imagine God singing, “It’s you I like” right back. Perhaps this is why Fox news railed against Mr. Rogers for making folks feel special, claiming it made people entitled rather than empowered. We are comfortable with systems that make us feel like we have to earn grace, that we have to prove our worth, be the right size or have the right GPA. We understand needing to prove we are special before we can be deemed special, that’s the way of the world. But this is not God’s way and it’s not even what we see in creation. We don’t plant a garden saying, “Grow and I will water you.” We do not welcome a child into the world and say, “do something lovable and I will hold you in my arms”…and most of us would deem that as abuse if we witnessed it. It is radical to be loved so much that we can love others. It is radical to liberate ourselves from the measures of the world and the power structures of the world and to look right in the mirror and say, “It’s you I like.” Rogers was determined that loving ourselves, seeing the divine spark in ourselves, was the way to the sacred work of really loving others. May we have the courage. Amen.



Questions to explore: 

Look at the Lyrics of “It’s You I Like” and imagine them as a message from God? How does that feel? What does that mean?

What does the theology of the Divine Spark invite you to consider? How does it make you feel to imagine yourself and others alive with the spark of God’s love?

What is the most challenging element of honoring the Divine Spark?


We are the Champions: More than winning this All Saints Day

My Grandpa’s funeral ended with “We Are The Champions.” This delighted and didn’t really surprise anyone. His death was a surprise, even through he was heading toward his 93rd birthday, but I had long known he wanted “We Are The Champions” at his funeral. I don’t think this was a theological statement, but a life mission statement. If the funeral had been pre-COVID, I imagine there would have been an audible response once folks recognized the song, their grief would have lifted, and smiles would have spread. However, as it was, the only folks in the room were my parents, my aunts and uncles, and a few cousins; my brother and his family were in another room listening, while Mike and Lila watched the funeral on Facebook in the car. So, rather than an a collective lift of energy, we watched hearts stream across the Facebook feed.
 
The pandemic requires us to be flexible and the time warn patterns are not available, the short cuts and muscle memory can not serve us now and so we grieve together, apart. Hugs and casseroles, big funerals, singing hymns and drying teary eyes all have to be thought through and measured for risk. The rituals, patterns and paths we know are under construction. We remember together in separate spaces. We worship in unique sanctuaries. Every happening from birthday parties and graduations to funerals and weddings has to be reimagined, everything asks us to consider what is essential - even this Sunday, All Saints Sunday, must be reimagined. 


This is a season when we name grief, we look it in the eyes and this year, perhaps more than ever, we feel the weight of grief. We feel the wight of grief over the ones we love and miss, but we feel this ambient presence of loss impacting every aspect of life. The events, milestones and journeys on pause; the names, stories and numbers every evening on the news of our neighbors dying with COVID-19. This year we remember our grief, our mortality and our loss with a particular heaviness. 


Every year we gather for this work. All Saints is born of the traditions of Northern Europe woven through with Christianity. Centuries and generations have paused as the hours of evening gobble up the daylight to name their fears, their worries and their grief. They have even dressed as what scares them most: goblins, ghouls, and death itself. We do this every year and the gift of this practice, the gift of being rooted in tradition is we don’t do it alone. You show up.  We show up remarkably, in a culture that prefers youth and would give anything to live forever, we show up to name our mortality, in a culture that prefers us to be not only fine, but awesome, in this space we show up to grieve together. That is the essential of All Saints Sunday, we show up, with intention to name our fear, our mortality, our grief rather than letting it sneak up on us alone. We do it not to dwell in despair, but to live with care. We remember our mortality so that we make every breath matter. 


This is a season when we lean into saints and into relics. If you journey to European churches and Cathedrals, you will find little reminders of saints and leaders onto which folks quite literally wanted to hold. When I was 20 and knew everything, this seemed silly, like medieval nonsense. But the truth is, I hold a lot of relics and praying with the saints (whether they are Mary, Francis or my Grandpa) is not praying to them. This is a season of leaning into the reminders of the folks who spark life, breathe courage, and nurture our being. It is leaning into their presence as we find our own way. I love this stopwatch, it is weighted with good construction and 40 years of track experience. It’s so durable my parents don’t mind Lila playing with it and I love, most of all, that my Grandpa tied it with a shoe string…no fancy lanyards needed. It winds and you can feel the seconds as they pass in your hand. He timed every lap and every race and noted every second of growth and every minute of improvement with this tool. He won championships, stopwatch in hand. 



“We are the Champions” wasn’t really a theological statement about victory in Christ as much as it was a mission statement for life. My grandpa was not obsessed with winning at all costs, for four decades he told students he was proud of them before the race started, before they won or lost, he was proud of their hard work. Winning was about more than races. For my entire life, everyone knew my Grandpa and when they meet me they tell me delightful, hilarious, and heartwarming stories. But you know what they never say? “I know your Grandpa, he won a bunch of state track and cross-country titles.” No one says, “I know your Grandpa, he is in the Nebraska State Coaches Hall of Fame.” All of this is true, but no one has ever grabbed my arms and relished the chance to share that. People say, “I know your Grandpa, he bought me the first pair of new shoes I ever owned.” “I know your Grandpa, he kept me in school.” “I know your Grandpa, he taught me to do this, build that, or gave me a shaving kit before my job interview.” Everyone knew my Grandpa Cecil and my Grandma Lila, you could hardly go anywhere without folks knowing them, wanting to chat with them and they were always going somewhere or meeting folks for dinner or supporting the local team. He was, and is, beloved because he loved so many so well. He worked hard to nurture young people, he was proud of their growth, proud that his shop students graduated ready to take professional certification tests. He coached and nurtured folks, even if they weren’t on his team. He mentored and encouraged his fellow teachers and coaches, his children, his grandchildren and even his great-grandchildren. He loved sports, but he loved people more. He could have won one more state title, but it would have meant allowing my Uncle Scott to quit football and quitting on a commitment you made was just not an option in the McKnight house.



My Grandpa was warm, this strange glance of warmth and hard working discipline. He never held onto grudges or hurts, I have to assume he had them. In thinking on his life and how he never had a story of “that guy or administrator or coach that wronged me,” I wondered. Maybe he didn’t get involved in the school politics or face off with a principal, but the truth is he worked to change some rules. Once he pushed to allow young men who had fathered children the chance to play sports and he won and they won all together. He refused to be bogged down in vendettas or let wounds be salted. And he evolved. He lived eight years shy of a century and he managed the world changes without a hard heart or a deaf ear. He started coaching in the 1950s. By the end of the 1970s, girls were running track and cross country. He coached them all the way to state, too…even if he had a rough time learning that girls cry during practice. He grew with us again in the 2000s when my youngest brother brought his boyfriends home. He chatted them up, included them in family photos and loved them just like he had when I brought a boy home. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Greg’s first boyfriend was a sportswriter. 


My Grandpa would chat folks into chatting, listen folks into sharing and remember whether he saw you a week later or a year later what you had shared, what was going on, and what obstacles you faced. There is this great wisdom in his stopwatch and in his life. He coached every sport, but the ones he loved the most were the sports with a stopwatch or measuring tape. The race wasn’t just against the people lined up next to you, the race was with yourself. He loved growth, the discipline that lead to growth, that made you better and stronger and more capable. He loved the sports where you raced yourself and he was as proud of folks growing into the best possible person they could be.


I hold this stopwatch and I sit at a desk he made for my Grandma. I feel his presence nudging me forward, reminding me to do my best work, to let go of what would hold me back and to bring warmth and love into the world. He is one of my saints, one that I can lean into when I feel unsure on the next step, and one that defines champion beyond the medal count. Perhaps you have that person, perhaps you can hold a relic or remember holding a hand. That’s what All Saints is all about. Naming these saints who breathe courage and grit into us, naming our fears and moving forward to a life of abundance where every step matters. 

May we have the courage. May it be so. Amen. 



Prayer for All Saints Day


God of Day and God of Darkness


As the TV’s flickering fades into the background 
    

and the curve of evening extends its long arc, 
        

we can often find our hearts restless.  


Our longings and wonders come as visitors,
     

reminding us of the people we feel more than see or touch.  
        

Some are loud and ruckus, with laughter and wild bursts of tears.  
      

Others are steady, ever-present guides 
          

on whom we lean and in whose memories we often rest.  


In this season of longer nights, pumpkin pie lattes and big family feasts, 
    

we pause with generations before us, 
        

to name the broken spaces that can’t be sugar-coated 
            

and claim the mystery of the connection we cannot see.  


Your love is the sacred thread that connects us as one holy family.  
    

Your love defines us beyond past, present and future.  


And so we pause, with our saints, to remember we are not alone 
    

and they walk with us still.  
        

When the path is a struggle, open our ears to their cheers, 
        

when we feel unsure, open our eyes to their spirit that lights the way


and when we feel lost, open our hearts to your ever-present love guiding us always.
                                       Amen.