Book Rant! The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers

To prove to you that I’m not using this corner of cyberspace just to “sound-off”, I present my first installment of Book Rant – which is my simple review of a book that I have recently completed.

For my first Book Rant, I am actually going back to a little book that I read in February of last year called The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers by Amy Hollingsworth (161 pages). This book takes a peek at the spiritual insights of the world’s most beloved neighbor, Fred Rogers.

Many don’t realize it, but Mister Rogers was actually an ordained minister in the United Presbyterian Church. As Hollingsworth points out, "It’s hard to think of Mister Rogers as a minister when we have memories of him asking us with a smile, “Can you say (insert inane word here)? I knew you could.” But what about some of his other phrases like, “You’re special. There is no one else in the world just like you.”

Hollingsworth points out that Mister Rogers was able to preach without ever saying a word from the pulpit. Rogers said, “I’m so convinced that the space between the television set and the viewer is holy ground, and that what we put on the television can, by the Holy Spirit, be translated into what this person needs to hear and see.”

I think the reason we loved Mister Rogers so much is because he tried so hard to be our good neighbor, “Fred sought to see their Maker in [others] and then to treat them accordingly.”

Here’s one of my favorite quotes from the book:

Pg. 78 – “[Fred Roger’s] definition of neighbor was simple: the person you happen to be with at the moment . . . Every person is made in the image of God, and for that reason alone, he or she is to be valued and appreciated.”

After I read this book, I actually TiVo’ed a few episodes of Mister Roger’s Neighborhood and as I watched those old shows, I suddenly began to realize why, as a child, I enjoyed watching a grown man in a cardigan feed his fish – it was because I had hoped he was right. I had hoped that I was special and that, indeed, there was no one else in the world just like me.

This book is well worth Amazon’s $12.99 asking price. Click below to order this book.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591452295/sr=8-1/qid=1145337697/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-0790861-5919219?%5Fencoding=UTF8