Episode Nine: The Love of Fred Rogers

Welcome to The Neighborhood, a Mr. Rogers tribute podcast. I'm your host, Rick Lee James, of rickleejames.com, and I run the Mr. Rogers Quotes Twitter account found @MrRogersSay. As we walk again into this podcast neighborhood, we want you to know that no matter where you are from, you are welcome here. I'm glad to be your neighbor. Every daughter, every son, every tribe, and every tongue. In the spirit of Fred Rogers and the life of welcome that he lived, welcome to the neighborhood. This week in the neighborhood, our subject is love.

It's good to welcome back the Mr. McFeely of our show, David Dalt. David is a teacher at Loyola University in Chicago, and he is an expert at helping people tell their stories. He produces engaging, innovative media for public radio, public television, and public events. He's the executive producer and host of Things Not Seen: Conversations About Culture and Faith, which airs weekly in Chicago on WYLL 1160 AM and is distributed by PRX. He is also the executive producer of The Francis Effect podcast. I call him the Mr. McFeely of our program because because he is— he always brings something new and interesting to talk about. And so I'm glad to welcome back David Dalt. David, welcome to the neighborhood.

Rick, I'm so glad to be back with you again, and I just want to say here on the last regular episode of Welcome to the Neighborhood just how blessed I have been to be a part of this journey with you. Thank you for asking me and inviting me along. I've really enjoyed it.

Well, the feeling is mutual. It's been really great to have you as a conversation partner on these shows. And I can't believe we are at the end of what we're calling Season 1 right now, and yet we have so many more episodes about to come out in the next few weeks that are especially focused in on the new movie that's coming out starring Tom Hanks. And so should we do just a little bit of spoiling right now to kind of let people know what's going on? Sure.

Let's let them know what's happening.

Yeah, we hadn't really planned on any of this, but we're going to have some bonus episodes of the podcast that just really happened by— I guess we just call it grace. They kind of fell into our laps. You've already heard us on the show, if you've listened before, tell about this new album that's coming out, Thank You, Mr. Rogers. And I've been recording several interviews to compile a bonus episode with different artists from that project. So you're going to get to hear from people on the show like country music legend Lee Greenwood, Grammy Award winner John Secada. I just recorded a conversation last week with Tom Tom Bergeron, who many of you might know from Dancing with the Stars or the host of America's Funniest Home Videos or Hollywood Squares before that, very well-known person. The producer of the project, Dennis Scott, I just had a conversation with him. And so we're going to get to share really in-depth about this new Mister Rogers album and talk about the actual music that Fred Rogers wrote. I don't know if most people know, but he wrote over 200 songs and there's really a lot to be said about his body of work. And also, David, we have— this is not even the most exciting thing, but I was contacted by Newsweek, and Newsweek has a special edition magazine coming out all devoted to Fred Rogers. They sent me an advance copy, so I was able to read through it, and it's wonderful. It's just a beautiful tribute to Fred Rogers. So I'll be recording a show with the editor of that issue and releasing it very soon. And then the last thing, at least I have Well, no, two more because you recorded— tell us a little bit about the interview with Shea Tuttle that you recorded for your show that we are planning on sharing here.

Well, so for Things Not Seen, a few weeks ago I had the chance to speak to Shea Tuttle about her new book Exactly As You Are. And you've talked a little bit about that book as well. It's just yet another in a wonderful and growing collection of books about Mr. Rogers, dealing with the faith of Mr. Rogers, or dealing with the kind of philosophy that animated Mr. Rogers. And so in this particular case. She's looking at a lot of the faith background and faith journey of Mr. Rogers, and I really enjoyed talking to her. And as you know, on Things Not Seen, we get to talk for close to an hour, and so it's a chance to really go in-depth and ask a lot of questions and to follow up with ideas. And so I'm very, very pleased that we're going to get a chance to share that with the Welcome to the Neighborhood audience as well.

Sure.

And I too am having Shea on my other podcast, Voices in My Head, and, and we may try to share that episode as well, just to get a couple different perspectives on the same book, but that book is wonderful and I really recommend it. And lastly, I think, drum roll please, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, however we make a drum roll without a drum, Tom Junod, I recorded a conversation with him a few weeks ago and I finally am going to get to share that in a couple weeks here as a bonus episode. Most people, if you don't know who Tom Junod is, you probably know the story that he wrote several years ago for Esquire and it's called, I believe I believe it's called "Can You Say Hero?" is the name of the article. It's a wonderful in-depth article and interview piece that he did with Fred Rogers back in the '90s. And this new movie with Tom Hanks, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, is based off of Tom's story. The reporter that's in the movie is loosely based on Tom, and it really is about their experience. So if you've read that article from Esquire that's been shared over and over and over again, Tom sat down with me.. We talked pretty in-depth about his experiences with Fred Rogers, and I'm just excited to be able to share that as a bonus episode of Welcome to the Neighborhood. I wanted to let our listeners know one more secret they may not have picked up on. For this whole season, we have been doing a different one of the fruit of the Spirit that is in the Bible. And so I'm not sure if listeners had caught on to that throughout the week, but love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. But I wanted to save love for the last because that was going to be my favorite topic and wanted to kind of spill the beans on that secret too, in case anybody hadn't caught on to that yet.

And so one of the things, because we're talking about love, Rick, that I wanted to think about is— and you're going to talk about this a little bit later on the episode, but there are many, many different ways biblically that we can talk about love. And so the first thing that I want to ask you about today is what happens when we get an experience of mismatched love? And let me give you sort of a low-stakes example of that. Sometimes you'll hear in popular media the notion of someone who wishes to date someone else, and they'll say, "Oh, but I got put into the friend zone." And so they have an expectation about what the relationship will be and the depth of connection and intimacy in that relationship, and instead they get pushed into a different category of connection and relationship, and they feel frustrated. And so, I want to talk about and use that as an example to ask about what it means when we have an expectation for how another is supposed to love us. And is it really appropriate to have expectations about how other people are supposed to love us?

Hmm.

Boy, that's a tough question. And to have expectations about how another person is supposed to love us. Later on in the show, I'll talk a bit more about this, obviously, in the more scripted segment. But that's a hard question because we have one word for love, and there are so many words for love in other languages that mean different things. So as you talked about, like the friend zone, I'm not even sure that we fully understand that it's okay to say we love a person sometimes. You know, some people feel very awkward telling a friend they love them, for instance, because we don't know exactly what that expectation is, is even supposed to be. And I love how you mentioned expectations. Um, give me some of your thoughts, because there's, there's a whole lot to think about when it comes to that.

Well, let me give a more personal example. And so I grew up in a broken home and my mother passed away in 2009. And a lot of my grieving and recovery from the loss of my mother has been meditating on the fact that even though my mother did not always love me the way that I wished, even though I did not get from my mother oftentimes the warmth and the care and the nurturing that I would have liked as her child, Realizing and coming to realize that she loved me the best way that she knew how and that she wasn't not trying to love me, that has been an incredibly healing thing for me. And so I kind of want to get at this question from an opposite direction. Sometimes the expectation of how another person is supposed to care for us doesn't match up with reality, but that doesn't mean that they don't care. It doesn't mean that the love is not there. And sometimes— and we talked a moment ago about the fact that we have one word for love and that there are words for love in other languages that are much more sort of fine-grained. I think part of this is sometimes a problem of translation. We're speaking one language of love and maybe another person is speaking a different language of love and we don't quite know how to translate the two. But as I say this, does that begin to sort of give you a sense of where I'm coming from with this question?

Yes. Yeah, it does. And I think you're right. And Mr. Rogers said it best, "There are many ways to say I love you." And I do think You're right, some people will show it differently than others. And, you know, there's, there's different types of love. Um, obviously your love for a child is going to be different than your love for a spouse, but it doesn't mean it's not love all the same, you know. And, and Fred Rogers would always say things like, nothing can replace the influence of unconditional love in the life of a child. Um, with a spouse, does unconditional love work? Don't you, like, when you you say your vows to one another, don't you set some conditions there? Like, I, I promise I will do this. And, and when relationships fall apart with that is when, when those expectations aren't met. Um, but you're right, sometimes men, for instance, we often can't show emotion very well for whatever reason. And sometimes I think, um, the way that a lot of fathers, especially of a certain generation, were raised The only way they know how to say I love you is just by the fact that they're still there. You know, they didn't walk out, they didn't leave. And some people want more than that, but for some, maybe that's all they knew how to give. And then there are other people like Fred Rogers who just seemed like he just had nothing but love to give constantly and could just always express that to people. And it's a very interesting thing, these things about love. But they're so much more than just emotions. They really are actions that we take, and there's a lot of ways to show that.

Well, and speaking of showing, one of the quotes that I think about a lot that Fred Rogers said, he said, "I got into television because I saw people throwing pies in each other's faces, and that's such demeaning behavior. And if there's anything that bothers me, it's one person demeaning another." And I wonder sometimes in the context of love, Sometimes people will engage in teasing, they'll engage in tearing another person down, and then they'll turn around and they'll say, "Oh, I'm just kidding." And one of the things that I really appreciate about Fred Rogers was how willing he was to stand up against that and say, "There are certain behaviors that no matter what the intention is, they're always beyond the pale of what we might consider loving behaviors." And I've thought about that a lot in my own life in the way that I am raising my own children, because like everyone, I enjoy humor.. I like to tease, and sometimes I love the twist of a word, or I love a perfect moment to deliver, you know, a little bit of a cutting comment. And as much as I may enjoy that personally, I realize that the person on the other end, the receiving end of that, whether it's a child or maybe a person in a fragile emotional state, I have to be thinking about and imagining their experience of my behavior., and I have to be responsible to some extent for their experience of my behavior. And by responsible, I mean willing to take responsibility. You know, we don't control how other people feel, but being willing when someone says, "That really hurt me," to not invalidate their experience, but instead to say, "So what I hear you saying is that what I did really hurt you. Is there more about that?" And to sit in that and to make amends for that. That to me is an aspect of what I think about when I think about mature proper loving behavior. And I'm kind of interested, Rick, how you think about the markers of love as you think about the relationships in your own life.

Yeah, well, something came to mind whenever you were talking about, you know, hearing another person and letting them know, you know, where they were hurt and then taking time to think about those things that have hurt them. Can you imagine the difference it would make, say, in just like the political discourse in the course of a nation like ours, if people were able to say to each other instead of, you know, "This hurt me that you did this," and the other side going, "Well, that's stupid. You shouldn't feel hurt, and you're dumb to feel that way," or, "You're evil because you feel that." I just think it would be an amazing turn of events if you know, leaders could stop and talk to each other that way. People who are, you know, fellow Americans could stop and say, "I'm hearing what you're saying. I may not agree with fully the outcome, but part of what it means to be human is to listen and learn to respond." I think in some ways that can be a very loving thing. I think that, like in our family, we're going to have really big struggles in our family relationships if we can't learn to listen to each other well. You know, it's— and I'm as guilty as anyone of this, where when my wife will say, "Can you please put your phone down? I'm trying to talk to you." And just saying, making sure that another person is heard is such a wonderful way of saying I love you. But as Fred points out, like in that song and in some of his episodes, there are many ways to say I love you. You know, Picking up your coat off the floor or, you know, cleaning something for another person. Um, these are making something for them. I mean, these are wonderful ways of saying it without actually saying it, that you're showing in a person's life. And I just think love is— there's just so many ways to do it and so many facets of love that mean so many different things. And, um, it's really hard to even have a conversation about talking about love because it's just so hard to define. And yet, if a person isn't feeling loved, they can know it, and something is wrong in the relationship, especially if a person doesn't feel like they're being heard.

I so appreciate, Rick, what you just said, because Saint Francis of Assisi is credited with saying that sometimes your life and your actions are the only sermon that a person will hear. And we think about the language of love, and we think about Fred Rogers saying, "There are many ways to say I love you." But you've just surfaced for us the fact that showing that we love someone is more than merely mouthing the words. It's being present. And you think about how Fred Rogers, when he would meet fans, he would focus his attention on each person as he was dealing with them. Giving them his full attention and respectful— his respectful sort of gaze. And when we think about the ways in which we care for one another with our daily actions, and you mentioned just picking up a coat or making sure that a mess is clean, those things are so important. And there's a sense in which real love is what you say to one another, yes, but it's also shown in what we do for one another.. And sometimes it's hard for me to remember that because I get distracted and I sometimes get lost in my phone or I get lost in thought. And being able to be present and being able to be available to those around me, that's an important discipline that is part of being a loving person.

Yes. And you know, as you were talking about that, I just came moments ago, I was telling you before we recorded the call. I came from the home of an elderly gentleman in our church, and just this morning his wife passed away. And I was over there simply just to sit with him because he doesn't have a lot of family or friends in the area. They're both getting pretty elderly. And literally the body was still in the room. And that's a very profound moment to enter in. And when I walked in the room and the paramedics were still there, he was on the floor with her. And remember, they've been married over 50 years, I believe. And he just kept saying, "I love you. I'm sorry. I love you. I love you." And as we got talking with him, as I'm sitting with him for a couple hours this morning, he would say things like, "I didn't do things perfectly, and there were times I really lost my temper. I wish I wouldn't have done that." But then he also talked about, you know, I'm picking up over this last year or more, he has been almost her sole caregiver at home. And I told him, I can't remember my exact words, but the heart of what I had said was, "You may have lost your temper a time or two, but you know what tells me you really loved her was you were here and cared for her when nobody else was around, and you stayed with her. And you're grieved right now because there's so much love in your heart for this person today." And I really got to see it in a very real way of a person who had shown love. You know, that many years in a relationship with a person, it was a very sacred and profound moment. I felt like in many ways I was walking into holy ground. And I just think that's one of the examples of how deep our love can be for another person. And it's rare that we get to see it expressed kind of that nakedly.

I want to say, first of all, my condolences to you and to your parishioner for their loss and for your loss. And also thank you for, you know, sharing that story because it illustrates so much of what we're trying to say in all of this. I mean, when we think about the legacy of Mister Rogers, I think what I hear again and again and again is that you kind of felt like Fred Rogers was a part of the family, or that Fred Rogers— I hear sometimes people saying that Fred Rogers was a kind of like a parent that they didn't actually have in their life, and that the gift that Fred Rogers gave was the gift of caring and the gift of showing up and being consistent and being available, even if it's through the television, for a kind of relationship. And so much of what we're talking about throughout these episodes has been the importance of the way that we show up in relationships, the kinds of habits that we have, the kinds of ways that we think about our engagement with another person and how we show that other person that we value them through the choices that we make. And to me, that's one of the most precious gifts of all, is when someone shows me that they know me well enough to have anticipated a reaction and to mention it. And I'll give you just one example. So because of my teaching schedule this semester, I am often, uh, on campus late into the night. That means that for several nights every week, I get home after my children have gone to bed and my, my wife's parents have moved to Chicago, and so my wife and my children have been going to dinner at her parents' house, which is here in our neighborhood, several of those nights every week. And as my wife and I were walking the other day, she turned to me and she said, you know, my mother, her mother, my mother-in-law, said that she wanted to make sure that I me, knew that they were not trying to exclude me, but that they wished that I could be there and that they were looking forward to when my schedule changed and I could be there with them. Just the fact that someone would have taken the time to think about how I would have reacted and to say to my wife, "Make sure to tell David that we care for him and that we miss him and that we wish he was here at the table too." That's a tremendous act of love because it anticipates It anticipates the possibility that I would feel left out. It anticipates the possibility that I would feel lonely. And if it's never said, if you never think to say it, then who knows what sorts of dark things might grow in that moment of doubt. But to anticipate that moment of doubt and instead to work against it and to say, even if you can't be here, you're included. Those are the kinds of things that I think about when I think about the way that Fred Rogers ordered He dedicated his entire life towards others.

Those are good thoughts for us, David. My goodness.

Yeah.

And what a wonderful thing for them to be thinking of you in that way.

So, wow.

There's a lot to take in when we talk about love. And you know what? There are just an infinite number of quotes that Fred Rogers has on love, and I share them on our Twitter feed all the time, but the one that just keeps coming to my mind is is love is at the root of everything. All learning, all parenting, all relationships— love or the lack of it. And that just, that pretty much covers everything, doesn't it?

It sure does. And I have, I have so loved the chance to be in these conversations with you, and I just want to say again how thankful and grateful I am both to you, Rick, but also to the many listeners who have written have commented and who have become involved in this little experiment in neighborliness. I have grown and been enriched by it, and I am so thankful to have had a chance to be on this journey with you.

Well, likewise, David. It's been a real honor to get to know you more through these conversations, and even though you're in Chicago and I'm in Ohio, I feel like doing this has been a great way to to really get to know you and love you more as a person and as a brother. And you're really a wonderful conversation partner. So, as we start going into the next segment of our show, another Fred Rogers quote comes to mind because even though this is episode 9 and that was where we were planning on ending season 1, Fred has a quote that says, "Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else." So, who knows where we might head down this road? We're certainly certainly have some other things planned in the future, and I certainly don't want to stop these, but it's been a great first season to do this with you. And I too want to thank everybody who's been listening and has been so kind to share. It's just such an honor for me to be able to talk about somebody like Fred Rogers, who I fall so short of being like on so many levels, and yet he's such a good model for us, I think, and it's been so great to be able to to interact with so many of our listeners and so many people who just come onto the Twitter account to share a quote now and then or to be able to share a picture of their classroom at school and say, "Hey, we've been watching Mr. Rogers today," or, "We've been learning about what it means to tell people we love them, so we baked our family cookies today," or something. It's been really wonderful, a great experience. So David, thank you for being such a big part of this.

Thank you, Rick. I'm glad to be with you.

Well, I think with that, we're going to go into the next segment of our show, and there's plenty ahead. And boy, I wish I had better words to say just what a wonderful experience this has been, but we're going to keep it going. And I want to thank all of you for being a part of this neighborhood. So let's continue.

You into our next segment. Fred Rogers once said, "Love is at the root of everything. All learning, all parenting, all relationships. Love, or the lack of it." Love is a word that is packed with so much meaning that in Greek there are 7 words translated as love. 7 words with 7 distinct meanings, but they all still mean love. Love is driven in some way by affection and attachment, and all of these words have something to do with that, but they are still distinct nonetheless. Let's look briefly at each of these words so that we can have a broad understanding of how complex love love really is, and how complex it was for Fred Rogers. The first Greek word for love is the word eros. Eros is romantic, passionate love. Eros is an appreciation for a person's physical beauty. It's driven by attraction and desire. For a lack of a better way of describing it, eros is Well, it's lust. It kind of exists in the early stages of a relationship, when everything is new and crazy and hot, and you just can't get enough of that significant other in your life. And, uh, I think we all know what I'm describing, so before I start blushing too much, I'm going to move on to our second word for love: phileia. Phileia: intimate, authentic friendship. It's where we get the word Philadelphia, brotherly love. Phileia is characterized by intimacy and really knowing one another, knowing another person. Phileia is encouraging, kind, and authentic. It's the stuff from which great friendship is made. No matter if it's with a best friend or a romantic partner, phileia is love that is based on goodwill and wanting what's best for another person. Then we have our third word for love, ludus. This is playful, flirtatious love. This type of love can be called infatuation. It's what we mean when we talk about having a crush on someone. Someone. Its roots are in having fun, so it isn't especially deep or bonding. Lutus is the type of love you experience with a fling, a casual relationship with little or no obligation. Of all the Greek words for love, this one more than others comes without any eros or phileia attachment. It's an immature love that is only love until it stops being fun. And this brings us to our fourth word for love, which appropriately doesn't sound romantic at all. It's the word storge, and it refers to unconditional familial love. Storge is the protective love based on the type of kinship that you're likely to experience with family members. Even if you don't like your brother you still probably love him. You will likely love your parents in spite of mistakes that they made raising you. Storge is driven by need and familiarity. It's sometimes thought of as a one-way type of love, like when a mother loves her baby before the baby is aware enough to love her back. Storge can also be used to describe a sense of patriotism or allegiance toward a country or to favorite ball team or a political party. It might only be one way, but it's strong, and as they say, it's thicker than water. Our fifth Greek word for love is philautia, which is self-love. This word can describe that healthy care for self that reinforces self-esteem, like buying yourself something fun because you completed big project at work, or buying a new outfit because you reached your weight loss goal. Well, unfortunately though, philautia can also be described as selfish love, the kind that seeks pleasure through fame-seeking and status-seeking, always doing whatever it takes to build yourself up, even at the exclusion of others. There is a fine line with philautia between healthy self-love and narcissism. Now we come to our sixth word for love: pragma. Pragma is love built on commitment, understanding, and long-term best interests, like building a family. In time, eros love pragmalove can turn into pragmalove as a couple grows to cherish and respect and honor each other. This type of love, pragma, is pragmatic, accepting of differences of others and, and learning to compromise for the sake of the relationship. Pragma is everlasting love rooted in both romantic feelings and companionship. And this brings us to our final word for love, the greatest and most far-reaching type of love: agape. Agape is empathetic, universal love. Agape is a love for others which can include your family, friends, God, nature, strangers, and the less fortunate. Agape is an unselfish and empathetic love toward humanity itself. Agape involves caring for and loving others without expecting anything in return, helping others selflessly. This type of love is foundational for societies and communities if they are ever going to become great. You might say that agape, unselfishly loving others, loving outsiders, loving foreigners, loving the poor, the lonely, the broken, the disenfranchised, and the refugee, is the only sure way to make a nation great, or to make a nation great again.

En.

All of these words for love are verbs, action words. They are not feelings, but they all have feelings associated with them. Every single type of love has its place. But when the Bible, for instance, says in 1 Corinthians 13, and now these three remain: faith, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love. The word for love that is used is agape. Here are a few quotes from Fred Rogers. Judge for yourself which type of love he seems to be referring to most often. My belief is that he most often was speaking of agape, because because his love was so formed by his faith.

Here we go.

Deep within us, no matter who we are, there lives a feeling of wanting to be lovable, of wanting to be the kind of person that others like to be with. And the greatest thing we can do is let people know that they are loved and capable of loving. Here's another one: Love and trust in the space between what's said and what's heard in our life can make all the difference in this world. Or who can forget the lyrics of Fred's song Many Ways to Say I Love You, where Fred penned these words: There are many ways to say I love you. There are many ways to say I care about you. Many ways, many ways, many ways to say I love you. There are many ways to say I love you. Just by being there when things are sad and scary. Just by being there. Being there. Being there to say I love you. Cleaning up a room can I love you. Hanging up a coat before you're asked to do it. Drawing special pictures for the holidays and making plays. You'll find many ways to say I love you. You'll find many ways to understand what love is. Many ways, many ways, many ways to say I love you. But love is hard, isn't it? And loving people can be hard because we are all imperfect. It would be incorrect to say that even Fred Rogers loved well all the time. In fact, like many of us, Fred had a hard time dealing with conflict with others. I think because he didn't want to seem unloving? But peace isn't just the absence of conflict, and neither would I say is love. Fred Rogers, like all of us, was human too, and as much as he embodied love, he failed at it from time to time too. To quote Michael Long from his amazing spiritual biography of Fred Rogers titled 'peaceful neighbor.' He says, 'On the other hand, Rogers donated money to his local faith community and to favorite charities. Betty Aberlin remembers that Rogers' annual holiday gift to her was a card with a message indicating he had donated to a charity in her name. There was a bit of complexity to this point. Like other struggling actors, Aberlin was struck by Rogers' apparent inattentiveness kindness to the financial needs of his own staff, especially during the holiday season. She sensed within Rogers an indifference or ignorance to the material needs of his actors and crew, an attitude that became all too real when they looked at their meager salaries or felt the sting of no special bonuses at holiday time. While in 1972 Rogers had extolled the remarkable effort to care for the financially struggling named Mr. Appel, it seemed he did not attend as well to his own team of artists. We might also consider this passage from Shea Tuttle's excellent book, Exactly As You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers. She says, Like anyone, he had conflicts with his friends and colleagues. Betty Aberlin, a collaborator and co-creator throughout the run of Mister Rogers' Roger's neighborhood, disagreed with Fred at times. "Betty Aberlin is a brilliant person. The program would not have worked without her," Michael Horton said. There were a couple of times when Betty felt she knew Fred enough to say, "This might be offensive to handicapped people. This might be offensive to women. This might be offensive to gay people." And Betty didn't hesitate to speak even more strongly when she felt Well, she should. Like in February 1991, she was concerned about the Gulf War and the neighborhood's relative silence on the matter, especially because Fred had decided not to rerun the episodes of Conflict Week because they had been controversial. In a fiery letter to Fred, Betty wrote: When I was young, I remember hearing how the Jews were exterminated in part because America's good men and women did nothing to prevent it. Now, the Iraqi people are being slaughtered and children in Israel and in the USA terrorized, traumatized, brainwashed, and placated. Your decision not to refer to or air Conflict Week and to do all-purpose spots instead, when you might have influenced popular opinion to embrace the New Order of Christ's Kingdom of Peace, stunned me. It was what you did not do and did not say that offended me. I strongly disagree with you. I continue to love and forgive you as I question my capacity to collaborate with you. Your restraint will probably ensure the longevity of The Neighborhood on PBS. Perhaps when the privilege of free speech has ended in the world Bush intends, dissent will still be permitted Was this permitted in make-believe? It does seem that dissent was permitted in make-believe, as well as in the real-world relationship, but maybe only permitted and never fully engaged. Fred wasn't particularly good at conflict. End quote. You have to admire Betty Aberlin and the way that she loved Fred Rogers enough to be honest with him. She was angry, but it could be said she was righteously angry, and she never demonized Fred or withheld love for him, even in her fiery anger. That is also a form of love, and it's important that we see that love can take on many different appearances aside from tranquility. Even Fred Rogers' wife, Joanne confesses that the couple was not particularly good with conflict. In 2018, she said, "We never got mad at each other that much that we could express well," she said. "We just got quiet. Both of us handled it in that way, and that's not the best way. It's good to yell sometimes. All of us have to work at loving one and love well, even as Mr. Rogers did. It's important that we understand that having conflict with another person doesn't mean that we don't love them. With 7 different Greek words for love, we can see that love is too complex to just be snuffed out by an argument. We are all in the process of learning how to love and to love well. We might aim for the selfless agape type of love, but end up only exhibiting the self-love of filautia.

But love is a struggle.

It is a word that does not give up. Even Mr. Rogers wasn't perfect, but in his imperfections he also showed us the importance of being people who can learn and grow, say I'm sorry, and offer forgiveness to one another. The archives of the Fred Rogers Center acknowledges this, in this statement on its website relating to the Fred Rogers Archives. It says, "Loving relationships are not always smooth, happy, and tender. Many of the archival items that focus on love also contain the words hate, anger, and rage. You often see this sentence from Fred: 'It's the people we love the most who can make us the maddest.'" It makes sense, of course. Our emotions are the strongest when they come to people we love. So the negative feelings can sometimes be overwhelming. What is important is that children know how to express their anger in healthy, safe ways. In February 1993, Mr. Rogers devoted a week of programs to the happy and angry feelings associated with anger. And appreciated with love. In the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, Lady Aberline asked her neighbors, "What is love?" She was confused after seeing King Friday and Queen Sara argue and then suddenly get along well together. Lady Aberline learned that love is complex and sometimes difficult, and that it should be celebrated and appreciated. Fred Rogers brought unconditional love to millions of children and to the people in his life. There are over 200 items in the Fred Rogers Archive that specifically address love. These items include speeches, articles, essays, and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood materials. What these items tell us again and again is, "There are many ways to say 'I love you.'" This is the rock-solid, consistent message throughout all of the work that Fred Rogers did. No matter who the audience was, Fred Rogers' simple message about love is the foundation for every episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. For the many speeches he delivered to colleges, universities, and professional organizations, and for the personal relationships he cultivated and maintained with the people in his life. To quote Fred Rogers once again, "Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It's an active noun like struggle." To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.

So many people have asked me, do you ever get mad? And of course I answer, well, yes, everyone gets mad sometimes. The important thing is what we do with the mad that we feel in life. A few weeks Ago, on my way home from a particularly tough day at work, I stopped to see my two grandsons. Their mom and dad weren't there, but the boys were there with the babysitter in the backyard squirting water with hoses. I could see that they were really having fun, but I felt I needed to let them know that I didn't want to be squirted, so I told them so. And little By little, I could feel that the older boy, Alexander, was testing the limit until finally his hose was squirting very close to where I was standing. I said to him in my harshest voice, okay, that's it, Alexander, turn off the water, you've had it. He did as I told him, said he was sorry, and looked very sad. The more I thought about it, the sadder I got. I realized that Alexander had not squirted me and that I had stepped into his and his brother's play with a lot of feelings left over from work. So when I got home, I just called Alexander on the phone. I told him I I felt awful about my visit with him. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was taking out my anger from work on him. I told him I was really sorry. Do you know how he answered me? He said, "Oh, Bubba." He calls me Bubba. "Oh, Bubba, everybody makes mistakes." Sometimes I nearly cried. I was so touched by his naturally generous heart, and I realized that if I hadn't called him, I might not have ever received that wonderful gift of Alexander's sweet forgiveness.

I want to thank you all for joining us here for season 1 of Welcome to the Neighborhood. Even though we've reached the end of season 1, we have a number of exciting bonus episodes coming your way. With the release of the new Tom Hanks movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, I'll be sharing an interview I recorded with Tom Junod, whose story became the basis for the film. Also, because music was so important to Fred Rogers, we are going to share a special bonus episode of the podcast featuring guests from the new album Thank You, Mr. Rogers: Music and Memories. That show will feature interviews with Tom Bergeron, host of Dancing With the Stars, Grammy Award winner John Secada, country music legend Lee Greenwood, producer Dennis Scott, and more. Plus, there are more surprises ahead, so keep listening and sharing episodes of this podcast. Welcome to the neighborhood. Just before we close season 1, I want to remind you that thankyoumrrogers.com is encouraging Mr. Rogers fans around the country to contact their local representatives to instate a Thank You, Mr. Rogers Day in as many states as possible. When you visit the website thankyoumrrogers.com, you can click on the tab that says Mr. Rogers Month, and there you will find an easy link where you can write your local representatives to be part of the movement. thankyoumrrogers.com also wants to hear from you with your favorite Mr. Rogers Memories. I am so happy to be able to partner with Thank You, Mr. Rogers not only for this wonderful album, but because of the many fine ways they are helping carry on the legacy of kindness that Fred Rogers left behind. Music featured on the podcast was Nouvelle Noël by Kevin MacLeod, and all other music by Benjamin Tossett at bensound.com. Special thanks to my guest David Dalt, and the Mr. Rogers Say community on Twitter. I'm your host, Rick Lee James. My personal Twitter account is @RickLeeJames. My website is rickleejames.com. My other podcast is Voices in My Head: The Rick Lee James Podcast, and I look forward to being with you again next time. Until then, remember, you make each day a special day.

You know how?

By just being you. There's only one person in this whole world like you, and people can like you exactly as you are.