Episode Three: The Peace 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 once again dive into this podcast neighborhood, we again want you to know that no matter where you are coming from as you listen, we want this to be a safe place for you. We know that those of you who listen week after week are coming from all walks of life, and we want you to know that you are welcome here. Every daughter, every son, every tribe, and every tongue. In the spirit of Fred Rogers and the life of welcome that he lived, we want to tell you that you are welcome here. We hope that this podcast will be a safe place of refuge for you. So welcome to the neighborhood. This week in the neighborhood, our subject is peace.

I would like to welcome back my good friend David Dalt, who is a teacher at Loyola University in Chicago. He's an expert at helping people tell their stories. He produces engaging, innovative media for public radio, public television, and public events. He is the executive producer and host of Things Not Seen: Conversations About Culture and Faith, which which airs weekly in Chicago on WYLL 1160 AM, and he is also the executive producer of the Francis Effect podcast. Please visit the podcast website at welcomeneighbor.podbean.com to find out more about David. I've been kind of joking about David being our resident Mr. McFeely because he brings some great stuff every week. But at this point in our recording here at episode 3, episode 1 has released, and that's the only one that has released so far. And you made a statement in that episode, David, about be a helper, not a herder, be a builder, not a breaker, and above all else, be kind. And a lot of people have been responding to that statement. So I think I might relabel you our resident Handyman Negri because you're all about being a builder and not a breaker. So welcome back to the show.

Rick, I'm so glad to be with you, and however you want to refer to me, I'm just so happy to be here. Thank you.

Well, I'm always glad to have a conversation with you, and I welcome you back to the neighborhood once again. We have been getting some wonderful feedback from people, and I hope that they will just continue to enjoy and share with us their thoughts on the shows as we've been bringing them together. Today we are talking about peace, and you, unlike everyone else who hears this show, you get to hear the scripted part of the show first and give us some good conversation points out of what you have already heard. So today You've actually brought some good things for us to think about and discuss together on the topic of peace, and that's something that was very important to Fred Rogers. So, uh, what did you bring for us today to discuss?

Well, the first thing I wanted to talk about, Rick, is this notion of peace or pacifism. That's very important not only to Fred Rogers but to many of the religious traditions that come out of Christianity. And so I wasn't raised a Christian. I became a Christian when I was in my late teens and early 20s, and, uh, And my, my first venture into Christianity was to join a group called the Religious Society of Friends, which is also known as the Quakers. And the Quakers are known as kind of radical pacifists. That means that they have historically never gone to war, and they have worked against war at all the levels that they could, including up to and including having won the Nobel Peace Prize at one point. That one of their Quaker— one of the Quaker organizations called the American Friends Service Committee, which which is sort of the Quaker version of the Red Cross, won the Nobel Peace Prize about 20 years ago for their work in pacifism. And so I was very intrigued to be talking about peace and pacifism this time around, partly because there are so many different ways to approach pacifism from a Christian context. And that's part of what I want to start to talk to you about today.

Hmm, very good.

And I want to hear more about that. And I find that interesting because Fred Rogers seemed to almost hold a lot of the tenets of pacifism that Quakers would hold, but he was not a, a Quaker in any way. He actually was a Presbyterian minister, and it's very interesting to see the ways that some of his views as a Christian influenced him. And, and again, at the top of the, the show here, as we talk, I want to remind everybody that you are welcome here no matter what your faith is, but it's, it's hard to talk about Fred without his, his faith context. And so I'd love to hear a little bit more about yours as we discuss Fred's and his views and why peace was so important.

Well, I should say that even though I was a Quaker for 14 years, and that was my first venture into being a Christian, about 15 years ago— so I've been a Christian now for almost 30 years— and about 15 years ago I became Roman Catholic. And so that's— and I went to a Presbyterian seminary, and what, what's interesting is that each of these, uh, Christian denominations, whether we're talking about Quakers or Roman Catholics or Presbyterians or evangelicals or, or mainline Protestants, however you want to think about it, they all have their own way of articulating a type of pacifism. So there, there is always this notion that somehow we should be reconciling with those that have wronged us, we should be loving our enemies. But different Christian groups have, have figured that out and found their level with that in different ways. And so even though I was a Quaker and was a radical pacifist for a number of years, now that I'm a Catholic, I still have a strong desire for pacifism and nonviolence, which is something that we might want to talk about a little bit in this conversation as well, the relationships of pacifism and nonviolence. But I'm not as radically a pacifist as I was when I I was a Quaker, and that's partly because the Catholic tradition has made its own level with pacifism at a different place than Quakerism did. And I have stepped away from some of the things that I would have seen as important to my witness when I was a Quaker.

Hmm, very interesting. Well, let's talk about some of those things, because there is a complex relationship between pacifism and nonviolence. And Fred Rogers, as listeners will find out later on in the show, Fred Rogers was very much a dyed-in-the-wool pacifist, much more on the extreme end than many people and even many Christians, or maybe dare I say most Christians, would find themselves on some level. So it's quite interesting. Tell us a little bit about your transition, sort of going from being a part of a religious community that was very much about pacifism, from the Quakers into Catholicism, and why did some of your views maybe change a little bit on that when we're talking about the difference between possibly pacifism and nonviolence?

Well, let me, let me say they didn't, they didn't change so much as they have shifted a little bit, and I'll explain what I mean. And so one of the things that's important to the Quaker tradition especially is the notion of public witness. So how people see us spending our money, how people see us using our resources. If we, if we do these things in certain ways, we, we feel as if— when I was a Quaker, we felt as if that this was an important part of how we walked in the world. And so, uh, when I was a Quaker, I was also working at a Presbyterian church as a youth minister. And I'll just give you one example. Uh, so this was 20 years ago now, but we, we went one day for an outing with the youth group, and the other youth group leaders had decided that they wanted to go and play laser tag, which, if you've never— if you didn't grow up in the '80s or the early '90s, laser tag is running around with guns in a space trying to shoot other people with a kind of a safe laser beam light, but it's very warlike. It's very much like being in an action-adventure movie. And at the time, I made the decision that I was not going to participate in that. So I went with the group, I helped to drive the van and all of that to the site, but once they got there, I sat outside and did not participate in the war games. And I did that, and I explained to them why I was doing that. I said because of part of my Christian witness, I didn't feel like even pretending to be at war with them was an all right thing to do. Now, nowadays, as a Roman Catholic, I might not necessarily take that kind of visible stand against even the near occasion of appearing to be at war with someone. Like, I might play laser tag, but I do think an awful lot still about how I spend my money and what I do with my resources. And how that witnesses to my belief in Jesus Christ. And that's an interesting overlap, Rick, with the way that Mr. Rogers thought about his own pacifism, because he tied his pacifism to his lack of eating meat. And I— that's one thing that I found fascinating in, in learning about Mr. Rogers, and something that I'd love to talk to you about. Why was Mr. Rogers a vegetarian?

Well, I know that he had said that he wouldn't— didn't want to eat anything that had a mother. And I think that that had a lot to do with it, just in his mind. And I don't know exactly when he became fully a vegetarian, but I think it was for most of his life. And I, again, you know, him being in that very kind role of not wanting to harm anything, and he— I don't know if he connected it with his mother or how he thought, but what are, what are your thoughts on that?

Well, so when I, when I was a Quaker, one of the things that we said was the reason why we would not engage in violence is because we believe that every human being was made in the image of God. And if you attacked someone else or did violence against someone else, that was a form of blasphemy because you were doing violence against the very image of God. And I, I hear in what Mr. Rogers is saying a similar spirit to that. So it's not quite saying the image of God, but instead saying everything that has a mother That's a, that's a deep form of empathy. Everyone who has an experience like I have had, who has relationships like I have had, even, even animals, he did not want to do violence to because he saw a similarity between how he thought about his relationships and how he imagined that other people and even other animals, uh, engaged in those same relationships. And so it was that profound act of empathy that motivated his nonviolence or his pacifism in that particular way. His, his unwillingness to do or participate in violence against animals. I'm inspired by that. I am, I am a meat eater. I'm not a vegetarian, so I'm not, I'm not fully convinced to follow Mr. Rogers' path, but I do understand the logic of it. And, and I think that every Christian or every believer, regardless of the faith that they come from, wrestles with these same sorts of things. How do I best honor that invisible thing that is so precious in another living being? That I, that I honor both the creation and the creator who helped to make that being be part of my life.

And you know, it's interesting as you talk about the great amount of empathy that Mr. Rogers had. Empathy is one of those things that, you know, either it seems like people have it in great supply, or sometimes people seem to be incredibly deficient in empathy for others. And one thing that I've noticed running the Twitter account @MrRogersSay is because I find that people are really longing for empathy. And maybe it's especially because Twitter seems to be such an easy place for people not to be empathetic towards each other. And so often social media, you can so easily just kind of, kind of, you know, drop a bomb on somebody with your short little tweet and make them feel bad, or say a comment to somebody that's unthinking. I really think that you can find it in the writings that Fred would write. You can find it in his way of thinking about being a person of peace and what it means to form communities that are peace communities and that are based around that. And how do we build communities that are in that way? I do think you're right. I do think it was out of a great sense of empathy that he had. And I really do think that was a real gift that maybe was unique to him that a lot of other people don't have, because I think he was able to, to feel what so many different people felt who were completely unlike him. I think about different people that will respond still to this day, people from all walks of life. And one thing so wonderful about running that Twitter page is we have people from everywhere, from all political views, from all religions, from people with no religions, and they seem to all come together. And Fred just seemed to so embody a person who could be so empathetic to people from wherever they were coming from. And I think that is a, a real gift that he had. I just don't see it in everyone, but boy, when somebody has it, it seems like people are so drawn to someone like that. And I don't know your thoughts about it, but as I was listening to you talk, it really made a lot of sense to me that why people are still so drawn to Mr. Rogers after all these years.

I think it's a common thought that says that someone like Mr. Rogers must have had a special gift. But I want to find a different way to think about that for just a moment. Because when I was coming into my faith journey, I was coming out of a background that I had some violence done against me. I did not have the best of childhoods, and I was a very angry person.. And one of the things that I have tried to do in my life as, as an adult, but also as a parent, is to build habits of empathy and habits of kindness into my daily life. Now, that— I don't necessarily know that that makes me a nicer person. Like, if you catch me at an, at an, a moment of fatigue or a moment of stress, that anger may still flash out. But I work very hard day-to-day to practice kindness and to practice empathy to those that I meet and to those that I interact with. And I try and demonstrate that with my children as well, and, and to try and get them to, to do those same things. So I think Mr. Rogers made a great habit of being empathetic and peaceful, and that, that bore fruit in his life as he grew older, to where he gave that impression where it was just a natural part of him. But I also believe that he worked very diligently at it, and I think that that when people, when our listeners work diligently at little acts of kindness, it will bear fruit in their lives as well. You don't need some special gift, I don't think, to be an empathetic or a kind or a peaceful person. You just need to be attentive and to be really listening. And the thing that I love, the thing that, that, that really sums this up, one time Mr. Rogers, I read one place, was talking to a group of physicians and he was talking about how scared sometimes young children were when they went to the doctors. And the very first thing that he said to this group of doctors was, "Remember, you were small once too." And just that simple act of remembering that once you were in the shoes of someone else can help you to begin that little habit of empathy and connection.

Yeah, you're right. And you are very correct. He did cultivate that kind of personality and all of those things that we loved so much about him. It didn't just happen by accident. I think He really did cultivate that by the kind of person that he chose to be. And we're going to get into some more of that in the episode later today. Let's talk quickly about parenting and peace, because I know that you wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, teaching your daughter or the way that we might teach our children to be people of peace. But it's not always very easy in the world that we live in. You know, you're probably like me as I send my son off to school who is 6 years old now. He's about to be starting first grade. There are things that I guess make me feel empathetic towards him because I think, oh no, he has no idea what's ahead. And I've been there and I know it can be difficult. What are some of your thoughts today about trying to teach our people, our children, to be people of peace in a world that it doesn't make that very easy.

Well, there's so much to say about this, and I want to speak very carefully because if I speak too quickly or, or make my points too quickly, I fear I might be misunderstood. So let me say a couple things. First of all, we live on the, on the South Side of Chicago, and here on the South Side of Chicago, there's tremendous economic disparity and And there is violence, uh, and there are children who are coming to the school where my children go who are walking in every day having absorbed a great deal of stress and have witnessed a great deal of violence and have not been given the support, the care, or even the rest and the food that they need to make good choices. And so I don't ever want to demonize any of the children that are going to my my— the school that my children attend. But I— and, and my, my children and I, and my wife and I, talk to our children about these realities, and we try and have empathy and understanding when another child does something either hurtful emotionally, or at times that, that may seem like lashing out or violent in the classroom or at recess or something like that. And so we're always trying to lead with understanding and trying to stand in someone else's shoes to realize why that person might be seeing that as a reasonable response. Or, or when a, when a young child might feel like hitting is the very first thing that they should do. And Mr. Rogers looked at this a lot in his own programming and tried to understand why sometimes a child would want to hit or bite, because they just don't know or can't think of a better way to act. We've always tried to teach our children, my wife and I, uh, to turn the other cheek, to step away, to go and talk to a responsible adult, those kinds of behaviors. But there was one situation in particular this past year where my daughter kept seeming to get into a situation where it wasn't reasonable to get away. She couldn't get away quickly enough, and there was one particular child who was just doing harm to her and was putting hands on her that were— that was not appropriate. Um, and my, my daughter is 9. She's in 3rd grade. She's going up to 4th grade. So this was in the 3rd grade year. And, and so we talked about what it might mean to act in a way that, that might make very clear that her body was hers and that this young person needed to no longer place their hands on her body. And if I were— if I were still thinking as a Quaker, I think I would have thought about this differently because I would have tried to find any way that I could to make sure that she never caused pain to that other person. In this particular case, having exhausted every other means that I knew how to, I said— I said to my daughter that she had permission if she needed to, to cause a little pain as she was getting away. Now, I hate saying that to listeners because that will feel like I'm condoning violence and that'll feel like I'm teaching my daughter to, to be a roughneck, and that's not what I'm trying to say. Or that's trying to say that I think that somehow this other child deserved somehow to be hurt, and I don't think that either. But I do think that particularly with our young, young children who are female, that we live in a culture sometimes that refuses to listen when they say no or asks that hands not be put on them. And I think that we need to be doing as adults, as parents, as teachers, everything we can to make sure that our, our young children feel safe, but especially our, our, the, the girls, the females that are in our midst, because they especially are in threat by our culture sometimes. And, and so, you know, my, my wife and I, we wrestled a lot with this, and my daughter wrestled a lot with this, and, and we came to the end of the year, and I feel like it was a successful end to the year, but it was a struggle for us both as people that want to be empathetic, but also as people who want to witness to the truth of our own faith, uh, that we believe that there's a better way than simply lashing out and hitting someone. And I still believe that that's the better road to take. But I will say, sometimes as a parent, it is really tempting to just say, to just say, take the easy path. And, and so I know that you're a parent too. I just want to say to our listeners This is a point where I think a lot about it, I struggle with it, I pray a lot about it, and it is not easy to be a parent sometimes living in the world that we live in.

Well, David, these are really good thoughts, and I think you've given all of us a lot to think about today, and I'm grateful for what you bring. We are going to spend the rest of this episode, as we leave our conversation, looking at the specific views of Fred Rogers about peace and some of my favorite quotes from Fred Rogers about that, and we're even going to end the show with a little clip of Fred himself bringing it to an end today. But this time has been very good for us in sort of setting up the peace of Fred Rogers and the kind of peace that he believed in and the kind of peace that he talked about. And so I want to encourage listeners too, you may not feel that you're on board exactly with what Fred felt or with what I've described or even what David has described today, but I so love this neighborhood that we can come together and have these conversations. And I appreciate you bringing what you bring week after week. Uh, this is going to be one of our longer episodes, but I think that's okay. There's a lot to dive into. And I think this is a subject that was very important to Fred Rogers and his life, uh, to the point that he dedicated weeks of his show to it. So I think it's appropriate for us to be having some of these conversations. And I hope that those of you who are listening will also be able to have some of these conversations, whether they happen in your homes or online., and ways that we can talk about together how we can build more peaceful neighborhoods and peaceful communities that we live in. So until next time, uh, David Dalt, thank you for being my guest here this week.

Rick, it's always a pleasure, and I wish you and your family peace, and I wish our listeners and all of their friends and all of their families peace as well.

If Fred Rogers was known for anything, anything, it was that he was a man of peace. One of my favorite Fred Rogers quotes is, "Peace is far more than the absence of war." This is true, but I also think that Fred would be the first to remind us that peace is also the absence of war. There are a number of urban legends floating around about Fred Rogers. So many, in fact, that Snopes.com has its own page dedicated to myths and urban legends about Fred Rogers. It's titled "Mr. Rogers' Rumor Neighborhood." If I were you, I'd go to Snopes.com sometime and look it up. One of the wildest rumors about Fred is that he served as a sniper or as a Navy SEAL during the Vietnam War, with a large number of confirmed kills to his credit. This rumor is false to the point of being ridiculous. Not only did Fred Rogers never serve in the military, there are no time gaps in his career when he could have done so even if he wanted to. After high school, Fred went straight into college, and after college, he moved directly into working into television. When he had breaks from his television work, his time was devoted to attending the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, which led to his ordination as a Presbyterian minister in 1963. He also studied and earned a degree at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Child Development. Plus, Fred Rogers was, was born in 1928, and he would have been far too old to have been a draftee during the period of America's military involvement in Vietnam in 1965 to 1972. And he was too fully established in his career at that point to have run off to enlist. Let's also just put this rumor to rest: that Fred Rogers always wore long-sleeve shirts and sweaters on his show to conceal the tattoos on his arms he obtained while serving in the military. Fred Rogers never served in the military, and he had no tattoos on his arms or on any other parts of his body. He wore long-sleeve shirts and sweaters on his show in order to maintain an air of formality and consistency with young viewers. He was friendly with children, and he talked to them on their own level, but he was also definitely an authority figure to them, like parents and teachers. He dressed in sweaters and long sleeves because he intended to establish that kind of relationship with them. They called him Mr. Rogers, after all. And it was Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, not Fred's Neighborhood. I say all this with no disrespect to any man or woman who has ever served in the armed forces, and I think Fred would also want to say that there would be no disrespect to anyone who served. But the fact is that Fred, he just never did serve in the military, and so any myths about him being in the military, we need to dispel as false. Because of the kind of life that he lived and the things that he believed in. Fred Rogers was a pacifist. He showed the biblical roots of his pacifism on one of his shows in 1983 when he ended the show by broadcasting an image of Isaiah chapter 2, verse 4 from the Bible, which says, "And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks." Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. Fred Rogers was a man of peace. Not only did he not serve in Vietnam, he was actually opposed to the Vietnam War. Not only that, he was opposed to all wars and all preparations for war at all times and in all places. Again, this is no disrespect to any of you of you who listen that may be serving in the military, but it's what Fred believed. He was a dyed-in-the-wool pacifist, full stop. Since Mr. Rogers was a committed pacifist, it might not surprise you to find that he broadcast his anti-war views throughout Vietnam and beyond, even offering a counterpoint to the militaristic foreign policy of President Ronald Reagan all the way up in 1983. The episodes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood that aired November 7th through 11th, 1983, remain the most concerted anti-war effort in Fred Rogers' entire television career, and I doubt one could find any other children's program that's anything like it since. This special week-long series was originally titled "War and Peace," but has since been retitled Conflict Week. Throughout the week, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood repeatedly delivered anti-war messages during the visits to the Land of Make-Believe. Early in the series, we see Prince Tuesday at school learning about war from his teacher, Harriet Elizabeth Cow. Prince Tuesday is the son of King Friday and Queen Saturday. Now, the next part of the show is going to be the dialogue that happened in the episode. I don't plan on trying to impersonate voices, at least not much, but I did want you to know in advance this is from the script of the show, and there's quite a bit of it. It starts with dialogue between Prince Tuesday, Anna Platypus, Daniel Striped Tiger, and the theme of the week is revealed. We start with Mrs. Cow, who says, "Now, which country do you think this is, class?" Daniel replies, "That looks like Up Above Land to me." Mrs. Cow responds, "You're absolutely right. Now, what about this one?" Daniel says. Anna says, "I think that's from Down Under Land." Mrs. Cow says, "Yes, Anna." It used to be Down Under Land, but not anymore. The Prince says, "Oh, I know." Miss Cow says, "Yes, Prince Tuesday?" The Prince says, "That's the one that had the war with Sidestep Land. So now everything from Down Under Land is in with Sidestep Land." Miss Cow confirms that's correct. Anna says, "I'm glad I didn't live there." Daniel says, "I am, too. I wouldn't like to live where they're having a war." The Prince says, "We've never had a war here in Make-Believe, have we?" Miss Cow says, "Not that I know of. There's no mention of a war in this neighborhood in any of the history books." Anna says, "We've had fights, when people get angry about things." And Daniel says, "Everybody has those, but we don't have fights with guns and bombs and stuff." Anna says, "That kind of thing must be awful." And the Prince says, "But what if you win? You get to take everything the losers have." And Anna says, "That wouldn't be nice." Miss Cow then responds, "No, it wouldn't. And war isn't nice, Anna." We've been very fortunate here in this neighborhood of Make-Believe not to have any wars. Well, when Prince Tuesday returns home from school, he asks his father if the Land of Make-Believe has ever had a war, and King Friday replies to him, "No, your grandfather and great-grandfather and your great-great-grandfather never believed in war. They used to say, there are other ways to solve a problem. They even taught us a song at the kingly school about that. The king then starts singing a song that says, "There are other ways to solve a problem. There are other ways to solve a nasty problem. Other ways, other ways." However, when the king's song fades out, it becomes clear that his mind is elsewhere. You see, King Friday has recently learned that that Southwood, a nearby neighborhood, has placed an order for 1 million parts, with factory owner Cornflake Corny especially. This news about the order has made King Friday wonder if the mysterious parts might pose a real danger to his kingdom. Prince Tuesday's suggestion that because Southwood has already experienced war and thus knows how to build bombs and make bullets and make all kinds of bad stuff to hurt people. Well, that thought has planted itself in the king's mind. Perhaps the million parts are the construction of bombs to be dropped on the neighborhood. While King Friday carefully inspects a part that he has secured, he then, after seeing it, gives urgent instructions to Handyman Negri. King Friday says, "You are to order a million of these from Cornflake especially." King Friday and conscript everyone in the neighborhood to help put the bombs together. Handyman Negri asks King Friday to confirm his order. King Friday says, "Yes, a million. If Southwood has a million, we will have a million and one." The king tells Handyman Negri, "There's no time for questions." And with that, the arms race takes off. King Friday goes forward with his plans to build bombs, recruit everyone in the neighborhood, and prepare for war. Not everyone agrees with the king, however. Lady Aberline sees the king's rush to war as wrong, and she tells him so. The king replies, "Niece Aberline, there is no more time for discussion. I wish you to come to the A/B room and help me to assemble more bombs." But Lady Aberlin says, "I can't help you, Uncle Friday. I've told you over and over I believe this whole thing is wrong. There is something terribly wrong about it." King Friday says, "Don't you want this neighborhood to be protected? If Southwood is building bombs, we must do the same." "Why?" Lady Aberlin asks. 'Well, because it's just the thing to do,' the King says. 'Uncle Friday, we don't even know the people of Southwood,' says Lady Aberlin. King Friday says, 'We know that they might be building bombs.' 'Well, that's not enough proof for me,' says Lady Aberlin. The King then reaches for some computer readout sheets, which really make no sense to anyone. And he says, "Here's proof enough, Lady Aberlin." She asks what it is. King Friday says, "It's a computer readout." Lady Aberlin says, "So?" The King says, "So, when you have a computer readout that long, you know that something is going on." "Honestly?" Lady Aberlin replies. King Friday says, "I have no more time for debate. I must go to train my generals." and their staffs. Farewell, niece. As you can understand, Lady Aberlin is as frustrated as one can be in the land of make-believe. And so make-believe resident contrarian Lady Elaine is also frustrated. When she hears what the king is doing, she scoffs. She says, "That's the craziest thing I've ever heard of." When others seek to enlist her in making bombs, she replies, Not on your life! I've got to know a lot more about this situation before anybody gets my help. Well, Lady Elaine and Lady Aberline then join forces to create a team of enthusiastic dissidents in Make-Believe. They are intent on checking King Friday's mind-boggling claims about their Southwood neighbors. While Lady Aberline has only a hunch that her Uncle Friday is mistaken Lady Elaine bases her critical reaction on a known fact, saying, "They'll never get me to believe all that bomb stuff. I knew somebody from Southwood one time. She was in my class at school. She was a great person." Well, the ladies then set out to identify who this great person is, and upon learning that her name is Betty Okonak, they seek King Friday's permission to visit Betty and find out what's really going on. The truth. While all this is happening, there is a potential problem. Bob Dog shows up at the castle with a piece of paper with bumps on it. He believes the bumps might be a secret war code, something that could reveal the dangers confronting the neighborhood. But Chef Brockett, well, he sets everybody straight when he rightly recognizes the code is Braille. And then translates the message, which reads, "That which is essential is invisible to the eye." By the way, that message is actually one of Fred Rogers' favorite sentences from the book The Little Prince. While King Friday wonders aloud about what this curious quotation could mean, Chef Brockett says, "I guess it means that there's a lot more things than what we see. Lady Elaine adds, "Or hear, or touch, or imagine. I think it means that there is a lot more to Southwood than our thinking up some story about their making bombs." After consulting his generals, King Friday changes his mind and agrees to send Lady Aberline and Lady Elaine as a peace delegation to discover the truth about Southwood and its plans for the million parts supplied by Corny. The newly commissioned Soldiers of Peace visit Southwood and soon come across Betty Okonak, who is now Betty Okonak Templeton. Lady Elaine and Betty exchange friendly greetings, and when Betty learns the ladies are Soldiers of Peace, she announces her appreciation. Betty Okonak Templeton says, "I love peace." I mean, if there's anything that's truly wonderful, it's peace. All these people that talk of war and shooting and all, that's just the worst. She also says that the rest of Southwood joins her in feeling the same, and she says, "Well, you'll never find a war down here. In fact, hardly anybody ever comes here. That's why Southwood is building a new bridge to make it possible for other people to come and visit. So that's it! The million parts are not for bombs at all. The parts for a bridge that will create a strong connection between Southwood and its neighbors are what the parts were for. Lady Elaine and Lady Aberline are thrilled to learn the real reason for the million parts and to discover the essential truth about Southwood. Southwood. And what is that essential truth? Well, as Lady Aberlin puts it to Betty, "Well, I just see that you all here in Southwood are very much like we are in the neighborhood of Make-Believe. You like good things to eat, and you like peace, and you like people to come and visit, and you think that wars are terrible things." Lady Aberline and Lady Elaine return to Make-Believe and announce their findings. The very moment General Negri learns that Southwood is not building bombs, he takes off his general's insignia and says, "I am so relieved!" When King Friday learns of the bridge, he expresses regret about being so thoughtless in his decision to train generals and build bombs. In his relief, he declares that everyone in Make-Believe will be generals of peace. And he calls for a report of what can be done with the million and one pieces he has ordered. This leads to a problem, though. King Friday's order of one million and one parts has bankrupted the neighborhood. This means that the king cannot fulfill his pre-war promise to purchase a record player for the children at school. Now that the crisis has passed, Queen Sarah expresses her disappointment. Queen Sarah says, "What in this peaceful world could be done with the million parts? And to think there's no money left for the record player that we had saved for the children at school. War is such a waste." Well, Mr. Rogers was not subtle in any way about the message. War is not nice. War is nasty. Period. In his book, Peaceful Neighbor: Discovering the Countercultural Mr. Rogers, Michael Long examines at least 3 reasons behind Fred Rogers' entirely negative assessment of war. First, he says war is not nice because it leads winners to steal from losers. Prince Tuesday suggests that winners in war get to take everything losers have. Mr. Rogers sides with Miss Cow, insisting that it is never good to steal property, land, and people from losers in a conflict. Thievery is wrong, and war means theft. Second, war is not nice because it fails to recognize the essential truth that all people, including our enemies, are just like us, inherently good and deserving of care. Long writes, "For Rogers, if we look deeply enough, as Lady Aberlyn and Lady Elaine do, we will come to understand that reasonable people wherever we find them, even in uniforms on battlefields, are largely alike. They are good and decent folks who long for peace and appreciate the goodness of life's bountiful offerings." Third, war is not nice because it is such a waste. War wastes precious resources that could otherwise be used for programs designed to help people flourish. In Mr. Rogers' mind, taxes are for record players that can help children appreciate music, not for weapons of war designed to slaughter the parents of children, or even worse, the children themselves. Think for a moment with me about the historical context of Fred Rogers' message in 1983. Standing in direct opposition to Ronald Reagan's foreign policy. As Michael Long points out in his book, "At the very least, his radical message implied that the invasion of Grenada was not nice, that the plot to use military force in Latin America was not nice, that spending money on nuclear weapons while slashing social programs was not nice, that identifying our enemies as evil was not nice, and that our own government was not nice for trying to get us to support war and nuclear weapons. Fred Rogers was a kind man. He was a joyful person. He was a meek man, but he was also a man of peace who directly and with intention voiced his opposition to pro-war and pro-military policies. At the end of that series in 1983, Rogers pointed out, "So often conflicts arise from a lack of communication, false assumptions, or confusion." And that's what happens in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. But let's go back for a moment. What if the King did have the correct information? What if his facts were straight and the people of Southwood really were preparing to drop bombs on the Neighborhood of Make-Believe? Well, no matter what we may think, Fred Rogers was an absolutist on the issue of war. Since he believed that there was no such thing as a "just war" and that war could never be nice, he believed that there is not one fact or piece of data that would ever make war morally permissible. Rogers ended the week with King Friday throwing a "peace-passing party." for the residents of the Neighborhood of Make-Believe and the land of Southwood. Neighbors pass the peace by dancing and eating pancakes and hugging and celebrating lasting peace. King Friday apologizes to the people of Southwood as actor Keith David uses some of the leftover parts to build a record player. King Friday then gives the order that all of the the remaining parts originally intended for war would be used to make enough record players that can be given to every school in the world. Mr. Rogers plainly and simply taught us, children and adults alike, that war is not nice. It destroys the fundamental goodness of humanity and misuses precious resources that could be used to help people prosper and thrive. He taught us that war very well can be a result of poor thinking and misunderstanding. The most important thing he taught us, however, is that peace really is possible. He taught us that peace is possible because humans are equipped with powerful and hopeful moral imaginations that can see goodness in times of danger and crisis. He taught us that peace is possible because we are not inactive, passive victims. We can always choose to create the peace that we imagine. We don't have to build bombs, even if we are ordered to. We can refuse to obey unjust and unfair orders. Mr. Rogers taught us that civil disobedience is not a bad thing if war does come, we don't have to fight. Mr. Rogers taught us that even when war does come, we do have the ability to self-correct. We do have the ability to change our actions mid-course and to stop and apologize. Mr. Rogers points out that we can make a choice to be people who no longer prepare for war. Instead, we can use our hopeful imaginations to prepare for peace long before war looms. Fred said, "People can make machines do helpful things, or they can make them do harmful things." When that week-long series came to an end, Rogers used footage provided by the Air Force to show a food airlift, and he explained that the airplane in the film was dropping some food cartons on a place where people had been at war., and all their food was gone, so the people in the airplanes were trying to help them have something to eat. Fred Rogers was teaching us. He was teaching us that planes can be used to drop bombs and destroy life, but planes can also be used to supply food to hungry people. At the end of the week-long series on War and Peace in 1983, Fred Rogers encouraged us to make the world a better place for people to live, so that people won't have to be scared of other people. He refused to other people, to make them the other. It was part of the way that he lived out peace. Well, this is how he closes the series, as Mr. Rogers Wishes you peace.

I wrote a little song for my father one time, and I'd like to sing it for you before I go. Maybe you could learn it too. It's a very simple song. Peace and quiet, peace, peace, peace. Peace and quiet, peace, peace, peace. Peace, peace, peace and quiet. Peace, peace, peace. We all want peace. We all want peace. I wish you peace.

Smiling Mr. Rogers walks away, and as he finishes singing and the episode ends, again Again, this verse is displayed from the Bible that I read before earlier in the episode, from Isaiah 2:4: And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. To read more about Mr. Rogers' peaceful worldview, I suggest that you pick up a copy of the book "Peaceful Neighbor: Discovering the Countercultural Mr. Rogers." written by my friend Michael Long. You can find a link to the book in our show notes on the podcast. Thank you for joining us here again this week in the neighborhood. Music featured on the podcast was Nouvelle Noel by Kevin MacLeod, and all other music was by Benjamin Tausig at bensound.com. Special thanks to my guest Dave David Dalt and to the Mr. Rogers Say community on Twitter. I am your host, Rick Lee James. My 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. So until we meet again, remember, you make each day a special day. You know how? Just by being you. There's only one person in this whole world like you, and people can like you exactly as you are.