"When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see hear or touch."
Fred Rogers
Two weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to accompany my mother to a screening of the new documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor?!. It was an especially special treat for me given the fact that like so millions of other parents in the early 70's, my mother first introduced me to the absolutely MAGICAL experience given by a man who embodies every single aspect of living out The Hero's Journey! According to her, Mr. Rogers was a staple of my daily experience for several years. And she credits him for helping to assist and inform my own early Hero's Journey with a sense of calm and peace, not to mention planting the seeds of ACCEPTANCE an Unconditional Love of one's SELF and others that laid the foundation for my current Life's CALLING!
Like so many others, my early child hood was fraught with anxiety, fear, and a lack of inner stability. This is in no way a proclamation of judgement toward anyone in my family. Life can be messy, complex, and full of trails and tribulations. Even for a certain five year old, who at the time was desperately seeking a source and sense of PEACE, Kindness, and security. Experiencing divorce at such an early age, if not handled with a sense of strident explanation and patience can create a foundation of unease that can truly last a lifetime.
However, every so often, a SOUL of great Divinity steps out of the shadows and illuminates the darkness with the pureness of his LIGHT!! Such was the case with one of the true LUMINARIES of our time. Namely, Mr. Fred Rogers and his revelatory show, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. For the uninitiated, Mr. Rogers (as he is still so remembered in complete REVERENCE) and his show that produced over two thousand hours of children's programming from the early 70's through the early 2000's is still considered a SAINTLY PIONEER and is perhaps one of the most beloved figures of the last 50 years for millions of children and adults around the world!
But I have a sneaking suspicion that there are many among the collective masses that are still unaware of the Spiritual impact his simple message of Unconditional Love, ACCEPTANCE, and Kindness continue to have on the world. So as the lights softly dimmed in the theatre, I was completely mezmirized by the Saintly nature of this man and the manner in which he fully Accepted and fully realized his own Calling and the template his life has left for the rest of us to follow. It is a treasure trove to be Re-membered and shared for many generations!
We are currently living in such divided times. In my lifetime, I have never witnessed such confusion, disconnection, fear, anxiety, and a complete sense of hopelessness than what so many of us are facing each and every day. And this documentary is absolutely an experience that will transport you back to the simplicity of BEING a child once again. When we are still connected to our own sense of wonder and hopefulness abounds! And Mr. Fred Rogers was a guiding LIGHT back to simplistic tenets that Re-minded us of our true nature. All summed up in his daily offering that "I like you JUST the way you are."
Mr. Rogers actually graduated Cum Laude from his undergraduate studies in music and decided his next step was to become an ordained Minister. But after just one year, the invention and power of the mass media instrument of television captured his imagination and vision of spreading his messages to the massive audience that a church congregation could simply NOT provide.
And so he dropped out of his School of Ministry and got a job as a TV producer in a small Pittsburgh station and slowly worked his way up to having the cache to pitch his own idea of a new kind of children's programming. He envisioned this still burgeoning delivery system as the perfect way for him to spread his messages of Acceptance, Love, and Kindness to millions of children around the world!
His fervent belief in his Calling actually had him testify in front of Congress in order to secure the 20 million dollars he and the newly formed broadcasting system still known today as PBS required as the funding for him to carry on with his life's mission of teaching his special brand of unbridled LOVE!! His testimony won over the hearts of the money maestros that were then part of Washington, DC's elite and the rest as they say, became the things that deep dreams are made of!!
So what exactly made his TV show such a beacon of programming that was able to have such a deeply embedded impact on children and often their parents that still stands the test of our ever changing and ADHD riddled times. I don't believe there is a magic bullet to that answer. What I do know and learned on a much deeper level during the two hours of devouring the documentary on his Hero's Journey is that he had a spiritual philosophy that still resonates 50 years later. He deeply believed that the most powerful way to benefit from our own sense of BEING and spirituality was to address life DEEPLY but with Simplicity. He felt that life is currently being addressed by the masses with Complexity and Shallowness. And that chasm is one important division that has and still creates the division we are experiencing in our current political and social economic climate! That resonated with my core because I teach a simple Paradigm that life's most complex issues can be simply addressed by Acceptance and Gratitude. It's all about keeping our thoughts, words, and actions in an energetic alignment of vibrational Acceptance that holds the present moment with NO resistance. Now please understand that true ACCEPTANCE is much more than allowance and non-resistance of the present moment. It means Accepting one another JUST THE WAY WE ARE! And the Divine work of KNOWINGNESS that every single moment is one that is supporting that which we strive TO BE! We work with that which currently IS! And after giving ourselves the allowance of the dignity of our own process of accepting what life has dealt us, we move into the Miracle Realm of Gratitude. Where our Faith is received with a sense of unadulterated MAGNIFICENCE. And we see that The Universe is actually stacked in our favor, always and in All WAYS!!! For we see that God sends us No Thing but ANGELS!!!!
Mr. Rogers felt that the demeaning of one another was an abhorrent act. So he taught that we are absolutely PERFECT EXACTLY as we are! He had been ridiculed as a child based on the fact that he was severely overweight. And never felt he had an outlet to expresses his feelings of hurt and anger. And these painful experiences informed all his adult teachings that we are perfect just as we currently are in this moment of NOW!
What a juxtaposition of our current Tiger Mom mentality that we must prove our self worth! While I see certain merits in this form of parental upbringing, I wonder how different a child's life experience would be if reframed in an environment in which a Spirit's sense of worth would be ensconced with acknowledgment by the manner in which they treated themselves and others.
There is one interview in the documentary that is especially precient given our current state of human intolerance and lack of basic decency. Mr. Rogers espouses that if we could simply see one another for the perfectly loving beings that we truly are that there would BE NO NEED FOR CONCENTRATION CAMPS THAT SEPARATE ONE ANOTHER. That our shared VISION of LOVE would supersede any form of human mistreatment, for WE'RE ALL ONE!! And tears streamed down from my face as I thought of the borders and children being stripped away from their parents down at the Texas borders. Yet Mr. Rogers spun tales of this type of human indignity 40 years before what we are currently experiencing on so many levels! He was indeed a God Given Gift on so many levels!!
After the attacks on the NY Twin Towers he was asked to speak to the now adults that used to spend every morning in his television presence oh so many years ago. He was at first reticent to accept. But his inner HERO stepped up and he addressed a nation wide audience. And as what was part of his pure essence, he spoke in a calm and relaxing nature with the exact same messages of Hope and Faith that had become the cornerstone of his essence for over four decades. And his message still resonates as a balm we can use for the current state of unrest and anxiety that is increasingly becoming a part of the very fabric of our collective consciousness. He simply said, "When we are afraid, and things seem to be going completely array, LOOK FOR THE HELPERS!" AMEN TO THAT!!
Mr. Rogers felt we are here to LOVE ONE ANOTHER INTO BEING! And I couldn't agree more..... But what EXACTLY does that mean?!?!
It means LOVING one another into BEING Kind, Present, Thoughtful, Grateful, of Service to Yourself and your Neighbor, and to assist one another into activating and UNLEASHING the Unique Person of Perfection that is your TRUE Essence.........
Many of Mr. Rogers contemporaries believed that there was absolutely NO WAY that his natural essence he brought to the millions of kids on TV for over four decades was the true nature of his Spirit. Yet, Mr. Rogers proved time and time again that the person he presented every day was EXACTLY who he was at the very deepest part of his SOUL!
"It's not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life that ultimately nourish our souls. It's knowing that the bedrock of our being is the good stuff."
Fred Rogers
To end today's post, I wanted to share my feelings about my own recent life experiences. Because I truly feel in the deepest regions of my SOUL that they would resonate with one of my greatest HEROES, Mr. Fred Rogers!!!
What I learned is that Belief leads to Faith...and Faith leads to Knowingness...and Knowingness leads to Gratitude and Gratitude leads to Blissful Joy.... So for all of those currently in a predicament in which Faith is hard to muster ...Please KNOW that you are not alone.... and that one day...your pain will be unmasked .... with Understanding and Wonder.......
Remember, YOU matter more than you will ever know!!
Mr. Rogers often asked people to think about someone who had helped them in a time of need during their life for thirty seconds... So I invite you to do the same right now...I'll keep time....
AND I LIKE YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE!!!!
Nerdmaste,
Jeffrey Louis Martinez
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