Can you be a Hero?
Mr. Rogers – whose TV show for kids ran 31 years
Some of you watched Mr. Rogers TV show for kids. For some of you he was a hero – of a special kind. Not a hero like Alexander the Great or even Madame Curie – rather, a hero like you – an everyday person who can change A world, not THE world. Now, I admit, that world could be very small; in fact, it could be your backyard. Or perhaps you have a huge impact on one of your grandchildren. Perhaps you work with others to make a city park is built on what was once a garbage dump. In my eyes, anybody who stick out their neck from their tortoise shell of self absorption is a hero. Some might call this a pretty low bar – I disagree. Why? Because my observation of life today is that just getting through the day psychologically, emotionally and physically in one piece is heroic.
Love and success, always in that order. It’s that simple AND that difficult. – Mr. Rogers
Let’s go back a few steps. Many years ago I got very sick and had a lot of time to ponder on what really matters to me. I decided that what mattered the most in my life was the legacy I would leave behind for my kids and grandkids and my community – which is of course the whole world. After that was decided I looked for what seemed to me the most pressing problem of our age and probably because I had taken the System Dynamics course from MIT years earlier and because I had been in Germany during the founding of the Green Party I zeroed in on the annihilation of the non-human world, of which the climate collapse is only a small part. When I entered that world as a Green Party candidate and climate activist I quickly saw that many people involved were pretty darn depressed and pessimistic about our future. I certainly did not want to become like that. I also saw that existing in that “the cup is 1/2 empty space” make those who were in denial of the extent of the catastrophe unwilling/unable to listen to anything those more aware souls had to say.
Enter St.Francis. For those of you don’t know him he was an Italian Saint from the 13th century who is the patron Saint of the Environment and was the first person from “the West” to include the non-human world within his circle of care. Simply put, he did not see animals and trees and rivers and meadows as objects to be used for human pleasure alone; rather he saw them as having intrinsic value. I read all I could about him – seeing his attitude – including a focus on joy – as mywway to keep my focussed on the seeing the cup 1/2 full and helping me to focus on what is right instead of what is wrong. That attitude permeates this poem:
Praised be You my Lord with all Your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun,
Who is the day through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour,
Of You Most High, he bears the likeness.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
And fair and stormy, all weather’s moods,
by which You cherish all that You have made.
Praised be You my Lord through Sister Water,
So useful, humble, precious and pure.
Praised be You my Lord through our Sister, Mother Earth
who sustains and governs us, producing varied fruits with colored flowers and herbs. [excerpt]
Fast forward to today’s essay title: Can you be a hero? The title is a variation on the title of the essay “Can you say Hero?” by Tom Junod, a brilliant writer for Esquire magazine whose writing style is so brilliant and so amazing that I count this essay as one of the best short pieces I have every read. Here is a short excerpt to inspire you to read the whole essay – which is easily found on the net.
ONCE UPON A TIME, a long time ago, a man took off his jacket and put on a sweater. Then he took off his shoes and put on a pair of sneakers. His name was Fred Rogers. He was starting a television program, aimed at children, called Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. He had been on television before, but only as the voices and movements of puppets, on a program called The Children’s Corner. Now he was stepping in front of the camera as Mister Rogers, and he wanted to do things right, and whatever he did right, he wanted to repeat. And so, once upon a time, Fred Rogers took off his jacket and put on a sweater his mother had made him, a cardigan with a zipper. Then he took off his shoes and put on a pair of navy-blue canvas boating sneakers. He did the same thing the next day, and then the next…until he had done the same things, those things, 865 times, at the beginning of 865 television programs, over a span of thirty-one years. The first time I met Mister Rogers, he told me a story of how deeply his simple gestures had been felt, and received. He had just come back from visiting Koko, the gorilla who has learned—or who has been taught—American Sign Language. Koko watches television. Koko watches Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and when Mister Rogers, in his sweater and sneakers, entered the place where she lives, Koko immediately folded him in her long, black arms, as though he were a child, and then … “She took my shoes off, Tom,” Mister Rogers said.
You might be thinking: “What’s the big deal about this essay written in a Esquire – a men’s magazine about men dressing well, entertainment, lifestyle, and politics?” The big deal is this: Hollywood used the essay as the template for the 2016 movie with Tom Hanks about Mr. Rogers entitled “It’s a beautiful day in the neighbourhood”. You can watch the trailer here – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3224458/ – better yet, watch the movie and have a happy cry like I did.
Anyone who does anything to help a child in his life is a hero. – Mr. Rogers
Better yet become a hero like Mr. Rogers. Better yet become the hero you were meant to be. Better yet look within yourself to find what your unique gifts are to heal the world. It could be to have a podcast like Mr. Rogers. It could be to grow an organic garden in your backyard. It could be to be a volunteer for your local charity. It could be… well actually – it can be anything that brings you joy and gets other people to see that life, a really good life, only happens when we do what shines out from who we truly are onto others – and by others I, as a follower of St.Francis – include ALL life. Better yet make your life a legacy by doing something heroic to make the world a slightly better place because you lived.
The future we leave our children is the measure of our society. – D. Bonhoeffer
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