My family has teased me for years about my affection for Mr. Rogers. I've never channel-surfed without stopping to watch him if he was on a TV station. "Why do you like him?" one of my kids asked me once. "Because he likes me just the way I am!" I jokingly responded. Although I was joking, I will admit that there has always been something about Fred Rogers that I've found appealing. I learned many years ago that he was both a Christian and an ordained minister. After reading The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers, (a Christmas gift) I better understand why I and so many others found him to be so compelling a personality despite his gentle, quiet mannerisms.
Fred Rogers saw his television neighborhood as his pulpit and saw his TV neighbors as his congregation. He said that he considered the space between the TV and the viewer to be "sacred space" where the Holy Spirit translated to the viewers what they needed to hear. I think he was a good example of a person expressing Christ's love in a non-religious way.
You may not like Mr. Rogers, but you'd better not trash-talk him to me. :) I've always liked him and, after reading this book about his life, I better understand why I did.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteI won't "trash-talk" Mr. Rogers, but I might do that with Big Bird. I never cared for Big Bird, haha.
Blessings,
Mark
That's awesome...sounds like a good read. Hey, we'll maybe have to meet up again next time I'm in my hometown of D-ville.
ReplyDeleteMike
Let me know when you're coming this way, Mike. I'd love to meet you in person if we're here then.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, Mark. Big Bird is evil. :)
ReplyDeleteThey just don't make 'em like Mr. Rogers anymore. Not on TV, anyway.
ReplyDeleteI also live in the Douglasville area. We oughta meet and chat sometime, too.
Maybe drop me a note on my site sometime and we can grab a bite or something.
Neil
Big Bird is evil!
ReplyDeleteSteve, be careful. Dogmatic and poorly researched statements like that will kill any possibility of your ministry impacting Avian-Americans.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you obviously don't remember this news event that proves my point. What's the world coming to? Will we next hear that the Beaver shot Wally?
ReplyDeleteAP Online
AP 10/01 4:26 EDT V743
Copyright 1993. All Rights Reserved.
NEW YORK
NEW YORK (AP) -- Big Bird, Sesame Street Muppet, is reported dead at this hour after an hour-and-a-half hostage standoff with New York City Police. Kermit-The-Frog, Sesame Street Muppet on the scene, reports that as police stormed the five story tenement building where the bird was holding Maria hostage, Big Bird flew out an upper story window at them in a Kamikaze-like attack. Police SWAT units brought down the bird in a hail of automatic weapons fire. Dead are: Prairie Dawn, Oscar the Grouch, Bert, and Big Bird. There is no information available concerning Maria.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteYou were talking about what you have been reading and I have just finished a book titled The Next Level by David Gregory. He wrote the book Dinner with a perfect stranger. I just wondered if you have read it and what you thought about it.....I thought it explained what it is like letting Christ live though you and using it in a business format.
Keep telling us what you are reading and what you think about it.
Thanks
Rick ( GO HOGS!!!!!)
Rick, I haven't read it but I did like "Dinner With A Perfect Stranger."
ReplyDeleteDid you know that David Gregory is Greg Smith, author of "The Rest of the Gospel"? It's a great book too.