The Kindness Gospel of Fred Rogers

When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.

Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.

Fred Rogers

The disappointing reality of this community is that better films are in the cineplex for a matter of minutes, it seems, while the dreck pictures hang around like radioactive waste. So, we missed A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood starring Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers during its brief run. We got a second chance to see the film this week when in was shown at the downtown theatre in town. 

Mr. Rogers has achieved virtual sainthood since his death in 2003, although his wife Joanne assures us that Fred was a loving, kind man who was a real human being. 

The documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? was excellent, so we wondered about what this dramatization would be like. We went with no preconceptions so both of us were a little surprised that it's actually about the relationship Rogers developed with a journalist who reluctantly took on doing what he considered a fluff piece about a children's entertainer for Esquire magazine. He was cynical about any person being as kind and positive as Rogers, but the experience changed his life. 



I don't want to say too much about the plot, in the event that you haven't yet seen the film. I will offer that from the first frames this is a story about forgiveness and reconciliation which is moving, and challenges viewers to ask what holds us back from being the persons God intends us to be.  I wrote in my journal last evening that this was one of the most Christian, gospel films I've ever watched, even though there are only brief references to Fred Rogers' faith. He read his bible daily, and prayed for others by name, and as Joanne maintains, worked at kindness as a spiritual practice. He was an ordained Presbyterian minister who lived his vocation through deed rather than word on his long-running show. 

I actually feel inspired by the film to deepen my Christian faith, and I would watch it again. Have you seen it? I hope you will.