Episode #264: I'm Proud of You - Tim Madigan's Friendship with Mister Rogers

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Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer-songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is your source for discussions on music, literature, movies, pop culture, theology, and more. Now sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of the Voices in My Head podcast. And don't forget to let the voices in your Your head be heard by following me on Twitter @RickLeeJames and sharing your thoughts about today's show.

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I am your host, Rick Lee James. I'm so glad you could be here today. This is a truly special episode to me. We've had some really great shows lately, and this one is no exception. I want to tell you just a little bit of the backstory behind this one. Before I get into the interview with today's guest, Tim Madigan. A few weeks ago, a friend contacted me on Facebook, and I hope he doesn't mind me saying his name, but he's Michael Campbell is his name, family life pastor at Grace Church of the Nazarene in Chattanooga, Tennessee. And he sent me this message and he said, "Hey Rick, please don't think this is weird. I have a book I would like to give you if you're willing to to send me your address.

I appreciate it.

And I didn't think that was weird at all. I love books, so I was grateful to him for sharing it with me. So a few days later, after I gave him my address, a package arrived. And in the package came this book with— actually, it was a gift with it towards my new album as well. But there was this book which I'm always going to treasure. I've already shared it with other people because I read it quickly and knew other people that would benefit from it. So I've been sharing it with people. But the book is by today's guest, Tim Madigan. The book is called I'm Proud of You. And Tim Madigan was a man that knew Mr. Rogers, who, if you've listened to me for a while or followed my Twitter feed, @MrRogersSay, or followed what I've said for a while, I've come to respect Mr. Rogers greatly over the past couple years. And it is a book that I had not read about him, but about the friendship that he developed with Fred Rogers. You're gonna hear a lot about that on the show today. But, you know, friendship plays so much into this episode today. So I want to say thank you to Michael, my friend, for sharing this gift with me. And Mr. Rogers would say, as you're going to hear on the show today and as Tim wrote in his book, you minister to me when you listen to me. And I wanted to say that to you that are listening today. Thank you for listening. Thank you for helping me and my family in times of grief. Thank you for listening to my music. Thank you for listening to the podcast. You minister to me in doing that. And so I'm really just so happy to be able to share this episode with you today. My one great regret in life, I guess, at this point is I really wish I would have had the chance to meet Fred Rogers before he passed away. I look forward to maybe in eternity spending some time with him when all things are made new and the new creation comes and the resurrection. But until then, I kinda have pieces of Mr. Rogers. He seemed like such a person that embodied Christ, and I think you're gonna enjoy hearing more about him and Tim Madigan and his friendship. But, but don't miss out on the fact that Tim Madigan is, is a really great journalist and author, and he has some other wonderful books that you can benefit from as well. Even though we're specifically talking about Mr. Rogers today, I really want to point you to TimMadigan.net, and I hope that you'll take some time to see some of the great things that Tim is doing and putting out into the world.

So that's it for right now.

Sorry for my voice if it sounds a little stuffy. I've picked up a little bit of a cold today. But thank you for listening to Voices in My Head. Thank you for being there, and I hope you enjoy this conversation on Tim Madigan and his book I'm Proud of You. God bless you. Thank you for listening. Hey, just one other thing as we get into the episode. You're gonna hear this when I'm talking. I don't know why it's choppy.

I've never had that happen before.

Tim is crystal clear. Everything sounds great on his end. Oddly enough, the recording of me sitting right here in my office, it sounds choppy when I talk. Thankfully, he does most of the talking, and I hope it won't be too distracting for you. Uh, but anyway, enjoy this episode of Voices in My Head.

My guest today on Voices in My Head is Tim Madigan. In a journalism career spanning more than 3 decades, Tim has written for the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Politico, Reader's Digest, and for 30 years for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Tim's books, including the critically acclaimed The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921, and a novel of the Greatest Generation in the aftermath of World War II, Every Common Sight. It was a 1995 assignment for The Star-Telegram that led to Tim's interview with Fred Rogers, the icon of children's television, and a close friendship between the two men that lasts until Rogers' death in 2003. Tim's memoir, which we're discussing today, I'm Proud of You: My Friendship with Fred Rogers, is an intimate account of Rogers' human greatness and a testament to the healing power of friendship. The transformative relationship and Tim's own experiences as seeking and healing human being remain at the the heart of his work. More than a decade after it was first published, I'm Proud of You continues to inspire readers around the globe, and Tim continues to speak of Mr. Rogers and matters of the heart to varied audiences around the nation. Tim Madigan, welcome to the Voices in My Head podcast.

It's great to be with you today, Rick. Thanks for having me.

Well, I'm so glad we worked it out and that you had some time in what I know is a busy schedule, and I really appreciate I have found that in the last few years I have longed to read about people like Fred Rogers, and he's become quite a hero to me. And very recently, a friend sent me your book in the mail, which was such a kind gesture, and he knew I liked Fred Rogers a lot. And I read it in, I think, maybe 2 weeks after he gave it to me. I read it and got through it in about 2 days because I just couldn't I couldn't put it down. And I thought, if I have a chance, I would love to talk with Tim because he seemed to have such a good relationship with Fred Rogers. So thank you for being here today. Let's start by—

Well, it's my pleasure.

Let's start.

And you have good choice in heroes too, by the way, I think.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Well, I want to start, and I know the book lays a lot of this out, but I want to give people a taste of the book. How did you first come to meet Fred Rogers?

Well, I was working, as you said in the introduction, I had worked for 30 years as a writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. I was working on a story about violence on television and its effect on children, and a colleague of mine said, you know, you should talk to for that would be Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Rogers. They would certainly have something to say. So anyway, I made the necessary calls and lo and behold, on the same day in October of 1995, I first talked to Bob Keesham, who was Captain Kangaroo, and he was really my childhood hero because I'm old enough to be a Captain Kangaroo kid. And then after I finished with that conversation, a few minutes later the phone rang at my desk and there was this voice at the other end of the line that said, "Well, hello, Tim Madigan. This is Fred Rogers calling from Pittsburgh." As if I wouldn't have known. So we had this long conversation and Fred was very generous with his time. And he was an amazing guy. We talked about his career and the philosophy behind his program as kind of an antidote to a lot of the terrible things that passed on children, as children's television. And towards the end of the conversation, and I don't really remember the context, he said to me, "Tim, do you know what the most important thing in my life is right now?" And I replied, "Well, Mr. Rogers, we just met. How could I possibly know that?" And he said, speaking with Mr. Tim Madigan on the telephone, And there was something about the way he said it that was, that I knew he was being absolutely genuine. Not his wife, not his kids, not his coworkers, not, it was me. And not that there's anything so particularly wonderful about me, it was just, I was the person who happened to be in his kind of space at that moment. And one of the great, kind of the great, or the foundation of Fred's humor and gracious, like, was how he embodied human presence in the, in the finest sense of the word. When he was with you, it didn't matter who you were. He was completely and totally with you, completely empty of himself, free of any of his own personal agendas, kind of open to taking in whatever it is that you had to share, and then responding from this kind of sacred space of his. Always with compassion, love, wisdom, and I think most remarkably, never judgment. So that conversation led to me being invited to Pittsburgh to spend 4 days with them to do a profile on Fred himself. And that was, as I said, in the fall of 1995. And for whatever reason, he invited me to be his friend, and I was more than happy to take him up on it.

And in a time where inviting a person to be a friend was more than just asking them on Facebook too, that's a genuine friend.

Right, exactly, exactly.

In the book— and I love that, by the way, I love that he was still present to people, which is— I have a few friends that are so good at that, and they have been such a help in such difficult I wonder if you could share one of my favorite stories that's in the book and a part that I highlighted. I think it might have been while you were interviewing him that first time, and Mr. Rogers said to you, I think while you were interviewing him, he said, "By listening, you minister to me." I think it was in that part of the book, and I have just latched on to that phrase I've talked about it with other friends of mine who are pastors. As a result of even that thought, we've thought, "You know, there is a real ministry in just listening to another person." It sounds like he did that for you in many ways as well.

Well, I think you're exactly right. In another book that maybe we could talk a little bit about towards the end of our conversation, Wrote a book with a therapist named Patrick O'Malley about— it's called Getting Grief Right. And it's about— it's basically— it's giving permission, people permission to grieve in their own unique way. And there's a lot of things to it, but there's also some advice for people who want to support people who are grieving. And it is essentially that. Being present to them and listening to them without any agenda. And being willing to step into that often painful space. Just to kind of be there. But anyway, this ties into that, what you're referring to, because on my first trip to Pittsburgh, Fred and I were sitting, you know, he invited me, he shook my hand and he invited me to this little office he had at the public television station there. And we sat down and had a long talk, and he starts to tell me about this friend of his named Jim Stumbaugh from his hometown of Latrobe, Pennsylvania. And Fred as a boy was chubby, shy, musical, and therefore an easy target for bullies. Jim Stumbaugh was the star athlete, student body president. And he and Fred somehow or another came to be friends, and Stumball let it be known that anybody who messed with Fred Rogers would have to deal with him. And this was a transformative thing for Fred, the faith that Jim had showed him. And Fred gives that relationship a lot of credit for the success he went on to have in life. But anyway, a few minutes before I got to— or a few months before, or weeks, I guess it was before— a few weeks before I got to Pittsburgh, Stambaugh had passed away from cancer. And so Fred was describing this relationship. He was describing his grief. He was describing his anger at cancer and how he expressed it through the— through by pounding extra hard on the keys of his piano. He said he felt like God could understand his anger. And so at some point in the middle of this, and you have to remember that I'm a journalist and I have a tape recorder running in between us. At some point he turns to me and he had been looking out the window and speaking very softly. He turns to me and looks at me and said, and says, "Tim, you're ministering to me." By listening, you minister to me. And I thought it was just— it really took me aback. I mean, it's something I totally wasn't prepared for. But as I look back, I see that as kind of the moment when our friendship really began.

Wow, that's powerful. I have to wonder— this is a little bit off track of where I was going to go next— but I have to wonder, as a journalist, did that change the the way that you looked at what you do as a journalist a little bit when you are interviewing people and what it means when you're listening to them?

Well, it didn't really change that because I had, by that point in my career, and I'd always believed in my career that the— an interview is really a human interaction. It isn't a means to professional end. And especially in situations where I'm talking to someone about something that is very, very personal or very painful, I try to be present in that way. And I think that that has been— that has been the reason so many people over the years have confided things in me that really, that they had really no business confiding to a reporter. But that, this, the thing with Fred was, was that, uh, and Tom Junod from Esquire magazine had the same experience, that, you know, Fred, in an interview situation, Fred immediately turned the tables. He was more interested in you than you were in him. It was really, it was just another example of this remarkable presence and remarkable humanity that he had.

That's great. And also while you were there, one of my favorite stories from the book is Fred invited you to church. And I guess you were the first person, maybe the only person to ever accept that invitation while you were with him that weekend to go to church. Can you tell us what that experience was like? What that experience was like.

Well, it was— I don't know if I— he said I was the first reporter he'd ever invited to church. I have no reason to believe that's not true. But anyway, he did invite me to church, which is really a stunning thing. I had spent 3 days— I got there like on a Thursday, and we had several long interviews, and I watched him film a program. And had an interview with him on Saturday morning, which was, I thought, to be our final time together. And I went back to my hotel and I was going to fly back to Texas the following afternoon, on a Sunday afternoon. And so anyway, I get back to my hotel and I get a call in my room. And once again, it's that voice at the other end of the line saying, "Hello, Tim. If you're not too busy tomorrow, would you be interested in joining me for church?" I said, "Oh, heck yeah!" Church with Mr. Rogers. But anyway, he introduces me to his pastor and his wife and his friends, and we sit on like the fourth pew from the front on the right-hand side and sing hymns. And then we get to the point in the service where the minister asks people to share their joys and concerns. And so one person says, pray for so-and-so with cancer, or have a new baby, or a new job, or etc., etc. And the last person to speak was an older woman standing behind us at the rear of the church, and I desperately wanted to turn around and look at her because she was clearly crazy. She launched into this long and deranged and embarrassing and long diatribe against war. She just went on and on and on and on, and she wasn't really making any sense. And you could just sense the level of mortification rising among the congregation, and you could almost hear the poor minister standing at the pulpit thinking to himself, "What tactful thing can I get this woman to sit down and be quiet?" Sure. Well, finally she did. And you know, you could just hear everyone going, "Oh my God." You know, including me. You know, the one exception being the guy sitting next to me who leaned over and whispered in my ear, "That poor dear. Don't you know that at some point in that woman's life she suffered terribly because of war?" And then at the end of the service when this woman was being ostracized, it was Fred and Fred alone who went up to her and took her in his arms and spent probably 10 minutes of his time listening to whatever it was about war that had caused her such pain. Whether it made sense or not. Because to Fred, the only thing that mattered was, was that it made sense to her. And I think that that too is one of my favorite examples. And I really think that that is what human greatness looks like.

That is powerful. Again, another instance of the power of listening to another person. That's really beautiful. Thank you for sharing that story. It really was moving to me in the book, as were many parts as I read through it.. And it is something that I could very much relate on because I in my life have been through a divorce. And you told how Fred was there for you when you were having some really deep marital problems and it looked like your marriage was over. And I wonder if you don't mind, would you care to share just a little bit of that story and how Fred was there for you in that time?

Well, the book, that's actually how the book begins. And I think that to understand kind of that story, you need to understand an earlier one. And that is that there's a great risk in being a friend with Fred Rogers because he wasn't necessarily interested in talking about the Pittsburgh Penguins or the Steelers or He wanted to know the truth of your insides. On the wall of his office in Pittsburgh, there's a quote from The Little Prince that said, "What is essential is invisible to the eye." And so what he went through life wanting to know about what he called your essential invisibles. What it was about you that didn't meet the eye. And his friend Henry Nowen had a saying had a quote that Fred often repeated. "What is most personal is most universal." Which I interpreted to mean, I mean, what is most personal? What are the things that we most try to conceal from one another? Is it the things we're most proud of? Of course not. It's our shame, it's our anger, it's our doubt, it's our fear. You know, and we, I think most of us feel at some level that we are somehow unique in this way. And what Penring was saying, what Fred fully subscribed to, was the notion that not only are we— these are precisely the things we have most in common with other people. And so he wanted to know about these things. And so after 6 months or so of relatively superficial correspondence, I wrote him a letter in the summer of 1996, and I said, Dear Fred, I'm Really glad we're friends, but if we're going to be friends, I think you'd be the first to agree that you need to know the truth of my life. And so here it is. And I laid out this depression that I'd been suffering from for years and struggles in my marriage and pathologically low self-esteem. And it was just a horribly difficult time in my life. And I said, Fred, at the heart of it all is this haunting notion that all my life I've been trying to get my father to be proud of me. And for whatever reason, I've never felt like I've succeeded. I tried to be a good athlete, student, win journalism awards, etc., etc., but it never felt like— So anyway, in this letter I said, Fred, I have a question to ask you. Would you be proud of me? And it just, you know, it makes me cringe even now that I would— that a grown man would say something like that, but For whatever reason, I folded it up, licked the stamp, put it in the mail, mailed it away. A few days later, Addis replied, July 1st, 1996. Dear Tim, the answer to your question is yes, a resounding yes. I am proud of you. I will be proud of you. I have been proud of you since first we met. He said, I'm deeply touched that you would care to share so much of yourself with me and look forward to hearing all that you would care to share in the future. Then he said, nothing you could tell me— and he spoke in these unequivocal terms. He said, so once he said anything mentionable is manageable, and in this letter he said nothing you could tell me could change my yes for you. And I, you know, and I didn't believe him, frankly. I figured there had to be something. That I could say or do that even the great Mr. Rogers would say, "No, sorry, Tim, you've crossed the line there." Well, a year and a half later, in the holidays of 1997, I thought I'd found it because the book begins with me putting up Christmas lights in our home in Texas, and with a very heavy heart because I told my wife a few days before that I wanted a separation. And I was thinking, how are we going to tell the kids? Can we make it through the holidays? How are we going to tell our families? Where are we going to find an apartment? All these really terrible things that go through your mind at a time like that. And, but the thing I was most concerned about was how am I, how was I going to tell Fred Rogers? This man who had spent his life devoted to children and families and I'm getting ready to do this to my own. So anyway, after the lights were done I went in and sat down at my computer and tears were streaming down my face and I said, "I really hate to have to tell you this, Fred, but this is what's going on in my house. Could you be proud of a man like that?" And I mailed it, folded it up put an envelope, licked the stamp, mailed it away. And a few days later, I had his reply, and it said, Dear Tim, please know that I would never forsake you, that I would never stop loving you, that I will always be proud of you. Those of us who care about you are privileged to share your pain. He said, if only we, we lived closer, I would drive to your house knock on your door, and when you answered, I would take you into my arms and hug you tight. He said, the kingdom of God is for the brokenhearted, and I'm more and more convinced that fewer and fewer people in this life can escape major suffering. And then he signed off by saying, you are my beloved brother, Tim. You are God's beloved son. And this at the moment of my greatest shame. "Please know that I would never forsake you." That was his response. And who does that remind you of?

Yeah, Jesus.

And so a few weeks later I wrote him another letter and after I'd done a lot of soul searching and realized that I was the problem. Not my wife. And so I wrote him another letter and I said my wife and I were not going to separate after all. And so he writes back to me and he says, "Oh, thank God." He said, "You and Catherine have been through so much together and continue to grow in such important ways, and I'm so happy for you and your children." The point being that he didn't want us to get divorced. But the only thing that mattered to him at the time I wrote him that first letter was, was that I was in pain. A man does not get ready to do what I was about to do unless he was really messed up inside. And that was the only thing that mattered to Fred. He didn't try to problem solve, he didn't try to do anything other than say, in so many beautiful words, "Please know that I would never forsake you." And you know, you talk about the ministry of listening. You know, I think that it's not just a ministry of listening, it's a ministry of listening and presence and non-judgment. I don't think people, I don't think we need to judge other people because people judge themselves. And so These things, I think, are the reason why the book continues to be relevant and always will be, I think. Because the power, the great power of pure human goodness, the healing power of pure human presence, I think he embodied those things. He didn't have to try to be present. He was present from the moment he woke up in the morning until the time he went to bed. To bed at night.

That is such a powerful story. I really appreciate not just the story itself, but I wanted to tell you again how I appreciate the transparent way that you told the story in the book. And that line that he said to you, "The kingdom of God is for the brokenhearted," I just—

Right.

I get a little teary even thinking about it right now. And that is such a beautiful gift that we can give to other people in that way. Well, there are many amazing stories about your relationship with Fred Rogers in this book. And there's amazing stories even not just about Fred, but really there's the story of you and your brother and the way that you were able to mend your relationship before your brother passed away. And then there are just many, many things that I want our readers to actually find the book for themselves and be able to read. So I don't want to give away too much of that story. But one thing that really stands out to me, and you even named the book, you know, I'm Proud of You, and it was amazing to me that he knew you needed that so much from your father, or just you needed to know that in your life. And the way that you describe in the book that he would sign every letter from then on out with, "I'm proud of you." And I just, I think that's a beautiful gift. And the way that you shared this love and respect for Henry Nouwen, and he actually knew Henry Nouwen, which was amazing. I found that out maybe a year ago a year or so ago that he knew Henry Nowen. I thought, "Well, that makes perfect sense," because I read both of them, you know, in the same way. Anyway, there's so much I want to talk about, but I think what I want to go to with the little bit of time that we have left— I have found that even all these years after Fred Rogers has passed away— and I'm one of these people, by the way— I find that people are needing to hear from a voice like him. They're needing to hear something of that message. I think I'm finding that adults are sometimes like turning to Amazon Prime or wherever they can find it and are turning on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood just to kind of hear that soothing voice and hear those words of, uh, of "I'm proud of you" in some way. And I think it's interesting that Even on that show, and I'm a dad with a 5-year-old at home, and we'll watch that show, and there's something about the way he was present to people even in that show. He almost gave a sense that he was listening to you even while he was speaking, you know, on the show and what he did. And as I told you in the email, I run a Twitter page that is called Mr. Rogers Just Say. That's just the handle. And I started it maybe a year ago with like 1 or 2 people that even started following. And I just started putting up sayings from Mr. Rogers. And in a year, we've grown to over 3,000 followers. And every day, like, I just have maybe 20— between 20 and 50 interactions a day with people, I think, just saying, I so needed to hear that today. I so needed to hear that today, you know. So I think in the climate that we're in right now, I think we need a voice like him, and I so appreciate the way that you were able to tell this story. And so all that is to say, I encourage listeners, please go and find a copy of this book, I'm Proud of You by Tim Madigan, because there's a lot in there. Would you have time to maybe share a little bit about your brother and what happened? I mean, it's a long story. I don't want to give too much away, but is there any part of it that you felt like you could share briefly this morning as we're discussing?

Well, yeah, Steve and I were very close growing up in this little town in northern Minnesota, and he was a year younger, so we were virtually twins. Played sports together and he was my best friend as a kid. And then as for, you know, it's kind of a complicated situation, but as adults we became somewhat estranged. And then he was, you know, Fred talked about my furies. He called my struggles my furies. And Fred, or Steve, had them even probably more severely than I did. And he was just Anyway, in 1998, I believe it was, he was diagnosed with, turned out to be terminal lung cancer. And his life was just transformed almost overnight. It was almost like a touched by an angel thing. And anyway, Fred was very much a part of this journey that we took with Steve. And at one point, I'd tell him about these things and Fred would say, "Steve is teaching us all now." One day late in Steve's illness, he was paralyzed from the chest down and in a hospital bed in his living room in Davenport, Iowa. The family had gathered there and obviously Fred and I had been talking about this. So the phone rings and my mom answers it. And of course, you know, it's that voice at the other end of the line. Line. And so they chat. My mom is going, "Oh my God, it's Mr. Rogers, Mr. Rogers." And they chat and then my mom says, I think, "Would you like to talk to Steve?" And Fred said, "Only if he's able." So she runs upstairs and hands him the phone and we all gather in the in the kitchen trying to eavesdrop and they start this conversation and Steve tells Fred that the cancer was the best thing that ever happened to him. And, you know, that he had found the meaning of life even though that life was about to end, he had found the meaning of life. Through this illness. And knowing Fred as I did, he was kind of doing cartwheels or backflips on the other end of the phone because, you know, this is kind of what he was about. And then Fred does something that, you know, people find quite remarkable and would seem counterintuitive. Fred asked my brother to pray for him. And you would think that under the circumstances it would be the other way around. But Fred's rationale, and again he was wholly genuine about it, and there are other examples of this in the book, that anyone who had suffered like my brother had suffered must be extremely close to God. And therefore, Fred really wanted my brother's intercession in his life. And that is just another example of this man's human greatness.

And I noticed that it seemed like a lot in your book, in a couple different places at least, you wrote about different people that he would ask to pray for him, that you would think it would be the opposite. But man, he seemed to have a way of turning the tables. And that's incredible. Well, Tim, it has been such a joy to talk with you, and I want to be conscious of your time this morning. But aside from Mr. Rogers, which I find fascinating, and I appreciate you so much being able to come on and just talk about your friendship and talk about your book, I'm Proud of You, I'd love to know about some other things that maybe you have going on right now, or anything that you would like to tell our listeners, if there's any projects or anything that you are excited about or that you're working on. We'd love to just hear about you.

Well, we published— Patrick O'Malley and I published the grief book last year, and it's called Getting Grief Right: Finding Your Story of Love and the Sorrow of Loss. And we're both very excited about it, you know, and And the response from people who have read it has been very gratifying in that it's kind of a long premise. It's in the world of steps and stages where people feel like they have to grieve according to some kind of preordained timetable, and if they don't, there's something wrong with them. Patrick has discovered through his own personal loss and through, you know, 40 years as a therapist that grief just does not conform to a timetable. And everyone's grief is different and we grieve because we love. And so he helps people sort those things out in the book and gives people permission to grieve for as long and as deeply as they need to. And frankly, the notion is that grief is an expression of love, and if that's the case, would we really ever want it to end. And, you know, and then the story part of it is as a means to kind of claim your story and understand your grief that we encourage people to tell the story of, or embrace the story, tell the story of their relationship with the person they lost. And like I said, it's It's been very freeing and very healing for the people who have read it. And that is the book. And Fred and Henry Nowen were kind of godfathers of this book. Because Fred's the example of my experience with Fred early on, and when he was talking about Jim Stumbaugh, and Henry's wounded healer concept, just being present to people who are suffering. You know, it's been— kind of really foundational on this book. So that is the thing. I've got some other things going on right now that will be kind of in the future, but that is a thing that I really want to share with your listeners today, that the book is— we're very proud of it and really think that it's going to make a difference to the people who are hurting in that way.

Well, you didn't know this and I didn't tell you beforehand, but I'm going to buy that book today. Because my wife and I just in this last month have experienced our fourth miscarriage.

Oh my goodness.

We're trying to figure out, you know, what to do with all that grief. And I feel like even just hearing you talk about it this morning, maybe God was in our timing of meeting for this. And so I really appreciate you sharing about that and writing that today. Right. It's something that I think we're going to value very much. So I plan on buying a copy today right when we hang up.

Well, I'm so sorry to hear of your loss, and I think you'll find things in there, you know, and I would say to you that trying to figure out your grief is probably counterproductive, let's put it that way. Yeah. The only thing you have to do is grieve. Sure. And for as long as As long as you grieve. And that is essentially the message of the book. And again, my condolences to you and your wife.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, Tim, and one more time before we go, I neglected to write down the name of your website. Is it timmadigan.com?

It's timmadigan.net.

.net. Okay, I apologize. I would recommend to everyone listening to Voices in My Head today, go to TimMadigan.net. You can find out a lot about what he has going on. I just want to thank you again for your time this morning. Your book is wonderful. I look forward to reading more of what you have. Thank you for just taking time to share a little bit more of the love that Mr. Rogers put into the world through what you're doing.

Fred would be very, very grateful to you for what you're doing as well. And he is, you know, he had this unique capacity when he encountered good people to feel like he was meeting them, meeting a good person for the first time and just really appreciating humanity. And I know that, I know that you and he would have been friends too.

Wow. Well, thank you so much for that, Tim.

Well, Tim Adigan, thank you for being one of the voices in my head this week.

You're welcome, Rick.

Thank you for joining me here this week on the Voices in My Head podcast. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com, follow me on Twitter @RickLeeJames, like my artist page on Facebook at facebook.com/rickleejames, and keep up to date on what I'm writing at my author page on amazon.com. Make sure to follow my calendar on the website, and if you would like to have me come to your town to do a concert, a speaking engagement, or a book event, you can book me through my website by clicking on the link for Pare Booking Agency. That's P-A-R-E Booking. And finally, it would mean the world to me if you were to leave me a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast is on the internet.

And now the benediction.

Amen.

May the God of peace, who raised Christ from the dead, strengthen your inner being for every good work, and may the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and dwell within you this day and forevermore. Amen.