0:00

Hi. Before we get started,

0:02

I wanted to give you a heads up that this episode

0:05

contains brief mentions of trauma,

0:07

abuse, and suicide. I

0:13

want to ask you if Fred

0:16

Rogers were here today and

0:18

you could sit down with him, and he sat

0:20

across from you and said, Hi, Actually, it's

0:22

nice to meet you. I'm Fred. I want to

0:24

know what you would ask him.

0:28

I mean, it wouldn't be one question.

0:34

I would want to sit and

0:37

listen to Fred Rogers talk about

0:40

the people who he's loved

0:42

in his life. I think there's so much to

0:45

learn from listening to

0:47

people talk about the

0:49

people who make them feel

0:51

a certain way. This

0:54

is Ashley c Ford in

0:56

our first episode. I talked to her about

0:59

a very bad day, a bathtub

1:01

and rediscovering Mr Rogers as

1:03

an adult. I would

1:06

love, love, love for him to talk to me

1:08

about his love of his wife,

1:11

his love of close friends,

1:13

of pen pals, how

1:15

he appreciated the

1:18

parts of them that you

1:20

know, it's not just set them apart,

1:22

but gave them joy. I

1:25

feel like Mr Rogers never really needed

1:28

anybody to to be

1:30

different. In an interesting way, he

1:33

understood that we are fascinating

1:35

creatures all our own and

1:38

there are people who when they speak

1:40

of passion, when they

1:42

speak of themselves at their

1:44

best, you

1:47

learn so much about

1:49

what happiness can

1:52

create in a person.

1:56

It's so beautiful and

1:58

it's so wonderful.

2:01

And I think that

2:04

very few people appreciated

2:08

and respected the concept

2:11

of love like Fred Rogers.

2:15

There's so many things to know

2:18

and to wonder about in this world,

2:22

and there's so many people who want to

2:24

show and tell you all they can, people

2:28

who want to help you to learn and

2:31

to be brave and strong and

2:34

interesting and loving.

2:38

That's the best part of living, loving,

2:42

and I love being with you. I'm

2:59

carved a Wallace and this is Finding

3:02

Fred, a podcast about Fred Rogers

3:04

from Fatherly and I Heart Media in

3:06

partnership with Transmitter Media.

3:13

We spoke to Ashley Seaford in our first

3:15

episode because she reminded us that

3:18

as adults, it's possible to return

3:20

to Mr Rogers and feel affirmed

3:23

and accepted. But

3:25

then she also took time to consider what

3:27

Fred might have been asking of her as

3:29

a small child, and might still be

3:32

asking of her now. I've

3:34

been following her example, wrestling

3:36

with what grown up things there are to learn

3:39

from this children's entertainer for

3:43

a long time, I've

3:46

been trying to talk about feelings

3:48

in a serious way, and

3:52

I think at times I've been

3:55

dismissed because of that and

3:58

definitely thought of as soft

4:02

or lacking and intelligence.

4:05

And I think that what Mr

4:08

Rogers in the Cultural Conversation is

4:10

doing right now is

4:12

offering a lot of people a

4:15

chance to reparent themselves in

4:18

one way or another by

4:20

listening and realizing

4:24

that while their feelings

4:26

aren't facts, their feelings are powerful,

4:29

and feelings change

4:32

things whether or not we

4:34

want them to. And we're

4:37

not going to solve

4:39

anything, change anything, um

4:42

progress on some of the issues

4:44

we want to progress on if we

4:46

continue to act as

4:49

if emotions

4:51

and feelings are not having

4:55

real consequences in our society

4:57

and in our culture and in our everyday

5:00

lives. We define

5:02

love differently all across

5:04

this country. Like for me, love

5:07

includes accountability. There's

5:09

no such thing as love without accountability.

5:13

And some people think of love as

5:15

active and some

5:17

people think of love as a nothing emotion.

5:20

Like what what could love possibly

5:22

add to this conversation? What

5:25

could love possibly help in these

5:27

trying times? We aren't

5:29

talking about what love means,

5:32

and we are acting

5:34

like figuring that out isn't a worthy

5:37

conversation, and we're going to pay

5:39

for it, And so the

5:41

idea that love would be useless.

5:44

Right now, I'm like, oh no, oh,

5:46

no, Love changes everything.

5:51

For a long time, I thought love

5:54

was just a stronger version

5:57

of like. But Fred

5:59

said love is an active noun, like

6:02

the words struggle. To love

6:04

someone, he says, is to strive

6:06

to accept that person exactly the

6:08

way he or she is to

6:11

accept ourselves as we are

6:13

right here and now. That

6:16

has nothing to do with liking people.

6:19

It's about something else, something requiring

6:22

time and patience and

6:24

quiet, things that may

6:26

seem hard to come by today.

6:29

Time and patience and quiet seem especially

6:32

lacking in the place where many of us

6:34

do most of our noisemaking. Online.

6:37

The Internet is a kind of manic modern

6:39

neighborhood where outrage changes

6:42

to laughter, changes to vanity, all

6:44

in a few seconds and seemingly out

6:46

of our own control. That's

6:48

when I start feeling like a video game and

6:51

somebody else has the joystick, And

6:53

in that case, all the people

6:55

on my timeline have the joystick, and

6:58

I'm letting them move me in different

7:00

directions, and I've

7:03

lost the plot. I've lost control, and

7:05

I don't like to feel that way. I

7:11

was talking to my therapists in the early stages

7:13

of making this show and thinking out

7:15

loud about what makes Fred Rogers

7:18

interesting and important today, and

7:20

she stopped me and she said, the thing

7:23

I've always thought about him is that he

7:25

leads with self. This,

7:27

of course, made no sense to me. So she broke

7:30

out the markers in the paper and she drew a big

7:32

circle, and on the outside of the circle,

7:34

she labeled all of these selves,

7:37

these roles that we take on when we interact

7:40

with the world. That protect herself,

7:42

who makes sure that nobody is hurting me or

7:44

my family, The self that needs to prove

7:46

its worth, the fearful self, the

7:48

prideful self, the needy self.

7:52

She wrote all these selves around the circle,

7:56

and I pointed to the empty center of

7:58

it, and I said, so, then, what's

8:01

that? And she said, that

8:04

is what we are. That isn't

8:06

anger or fear or

8:08

shame or worthlessness

8:10

or a loneness. That is

8:13

the true self. And

8:15

when I watched Mr Rogers, it's clear

8:18

that this person has done the work

8:20

necessary to lead primarily

8:23

with that self. The

8:25

other parts are there, but there

8:27

in the back seat he can be in dialogue

8:29

with them, but they don't run the show,

8:32

or, as Ashley would say, it's the

8:35

true self that has the joystick.

8:38

I recently went and saw Celene Dion

8:41

perform UH in concert,

8:43

and one of the first songs she sings

8:46

is the Power of Love. Now,

8:49

I remember when it came out. I used to go all

8:51

nights skating with my cousins and

8:53

my brother at roller Dome

8:55

South in Fort Wayne, Indiana. And

8:58

when I was a kid at all night

9:00

skate rolling around the skating rink, and

9:02

the Power of Love would come on right

9:05

to skate two, and I

9:08

would just throw my hands

9:11

back behind me and skate

9:13

as quickly as I could.

9:16

And there's that part that she gets to,

9:18

you know that, because I'm y'allt

9:22

and I when

9:24

she would get to that part, that's when I would stop

9:27

skating, and I would just

9:29

let the momentum of my body

9:31

push me forward with my arms

9:34

back and my eyes closed, singing

9:36

at the top of my lungs. And the

9:38

DJ would get on the microphone and

9:41

would say, Ashley Ford, once again,

9:44

this is a couple's skate,

9:48

and I

9:51

could not care.

9:54

I was going to skate to that

9:56

song. I feel

9:59

like the person I was

10:01

in that moment was

10:04

and is my core self. I

10:08

feel like there

10:10

was this deep understanding

10:13

of myself in that time

10:16

of what I wanted, what I valued,

10:19

how to just feel my body and

10:21

enjoy it for what it was

10:23

doing, for the movement, for the fun,

10:26

how to like dream

10:28

about big love and

10:30

what love could be like, and be

10:33

surrounded by people

10:36

and still feel like I

10:38

was my own and I couldn't

10:40

care what they thought about me. I couldn't

10:42

care if I was going to be in trouble.

10:45

All I could think was who I am

10:47

right now is like good, Like this

10:49

is good. And it wasn't good

10:51

because I was doing anything for anybody

10:54

else, And it wasn't good because I was trying

10:56

to be anything else. It's about

10:58

a way of being and

11:01

putting myself at the center,

11:03

not because everybody else should put

11:05

me at the center, but just because I am

11:08

worthy of being at the center

11:10

of myself. I'm glad

11:13

I'm the way I am. I think

11:16

I'm fine. I'm glad

11:19

I'm the way I am. The pleasure's

11:23

mine. It's good that

11:26

I look the way I should.

11:28

Wouldn't change now if I

11:31

could, because I'm

11:33

happy to be

11:36

me. Aren't

11:40

there times that you feel that way that

11:43

you're just glad you're the way you are?

11:48

Good for you if

11:50

you know those times, yes,

11:53

sir, I'm proud of it. When

11:55

you can feel that way.

12:00

Ye. Hope

12:04

for ourselves and hope for our

12:06

relationships our communities depends

12:09

on our ability to find our center,

12:12

to stay in touch with it, and to act

12:14

from it. Fred Rogers

12:16

spent his life creating television

12:19

for children that was shaped in part

12:21

by this new understanding of what

12:23

we need in order to flourish. Mr

12:26

rogers Neighborhood was less about learning a B

12:28

c S and more about sorting through

12:30

and managing the enormous feelings

12:33

that move through you as you grow and

12:35

Actuley says he did that by making

12:38

time and space for the little

12:40

feelings, just listening

12:43

to them, and that is

12:45

something a lot of us have forgotten.

12:49

The problem is is that we

12:52

think the extreme

12:54

feelings are the only feelings

12:57

that should motivate action, and

12:59

I think think that we have to stop relying

13:02

on the idea that certain feelings

13:04

will compel us to act a certain

13:06

way, and instead notice

13:09

our feelings, no matter how mild

13:11

they are, and choose to do

13:13

something with them. And I

13:16

think, unfortunately what we've

13:18

done is encouraged a real lack

13:20

of imagination for what can

13:23

be done when you feel something

13:25

that is not as strong.

13:28

I think it's a lack of imagination. The

13:36

first time we talked, one of the questions that people

13:38

seem to really respond to is and

13:41

want to ask you what do you do with the mad

13:43

that you feel? And in

13:45

this conversation, we've talked less about

13:47

mad and more about love, And so

13:49

I'm going to ask you what some may think

13:52

is the inverse of that question, though I don't know that it is,

13:54

what do you do with the love that you feel?

13:58

I keep what I need and I spend the rest, and

14:02

there's always more. It's it's abundant.

14:05

I

14:07

I'd like to honor people and love people

14:10

with my presence and with being

14:12

president with them, because not enough

14:15

of us get that, and I'm

14:17

good at that. And if that's the

14:19

gift I got to give, then

14:22

that's what y'all gonna get. Hi.

14:27

My name is Risa and I've

14:29

never called it for a show before,

14:32

but I was fired by

14:34

you guys. We asked

14:36

you you who've been listening to

14:38

share stories about people who showed

14:41

you how to be helpers. But

14:43

that's really a question about love too.

14:47

Hi, mom saw that we

14:49

each walk around with a bokay of flowers

14:52

and walk down

14:54

the street. If somebody says hied you with

14:57

smiles and there giving you a

14:59

flower, and you have a choice. You can smile

15:02

back and say hi, give them a flower back,

15:05

or you going to take their flower of human And

15:07

so the trick

15:09

is to keep your okay healthy.

15:12

And so if you're always giving away your flowers

15:15

and not accepting other

15:17

people's flowers and return, you're going to run

15:19

out of flowers. Whereas if you're

15:22

always accepting other people's flowers

15:24

but you're not getting out yours, and you're gonna

15:27

find them with a little huge

15:30

out of sorts. Okay, So to tricking,

15:32

you know, to find that balance. More

15:37

stories from you After a quick

15:39

break,

16:00

h Ashley

16:39

says she takes the love she needs

16:42

and gives the rest away. That

16:45

feels most natural when we're giving it away to

16:47

our family or our friends. But

16:50

when we give it away to strangers, we're

16:52

not doing it because we think we might get something

16:55

back. We may never even see them again. We're

16:58

doing it because we to

17:00

be good neighbors, high

17:04

carvel. My name is Benny

17:06

Delgado. What a profound

17:08

question. Who taught me what it means

17:11

to be a helper? And you

17:13

know, I distinctly remember my mother.

17:15

We were driving down the road.

17:18

It was snowing. It was really

17:20

cold that day, and

17:23

we're coming down a busy street and

17:26

there was a mother and

17:29

her children that were

17:32

walking against the wind with the snow hitting them

17:35

and carrying bags of groceries

17:38

and uh and immediately she pulled over, rolled

17:41

down the window and offered

17:43

to give these people a ride. And

17:46

immediately she asked us to move over. There

17:49

was several kids and the mother. Mother

17:51

got in the front seat and we all squished into the back.

17:54

She got out, help get the groceries and its the trunk

17:56

of a car and took them to wherever

17:58

they were going, way past our house. And

18:02

you know that that memory is ingrained in my mind.

18:07

Hello, my name is Justin sweeton

18:10

Um from Texas and

18:12

two thousand and sixteen, I was homeless

18:15

and on drugs and needed

18:17

to make a change in my life. So I walked

18:20

to uh Conro, Texas,

18:23

met a man there by the name of Luke Reatas.

18:26

He invited me into the men's transitional

18:28

home called the Freedom

18:30

House. He basically

18:33

just instructed me on good

18:35

ethics through the lens of Christianity.

18:39

A few months into the program, the guy

18:41

who was running the Corner House of Prayer,

18:43

he was stepping down after seven years. I

18:46

just felt the urge and I wanted to

18:48

step into that position, and I wanted to

18:50

be a part of this, this community to

18:53

help homeless people get back

18:55

on their feet. And uh

18:57

Luke was absolutely on board with

18:59

it. He gave me a key to the church.

19:02

He gave me basically all authority

19:04

over the place. You know, somebody

19:06

who had only been sober for a few months.

19:08

And for the next two

19:11

years I impacted

19:13

people's lives like I wouldn't believe, you

19:16

know. I went from someone who was in

19:19

search of help to suddenly

19:21

giving help. It

19:24

was the most important two years of my life. Ki

19:28

grovel Um. When I

19:30

was in the third grade, I was

19:33

a painfully awkward

19:35

kid and had glasses

19:37

and I had a big backpack, and

19:39

I got picked on a lot by

19:42

this one girl in particular.

19:44

I was just I was so afraid of

19:46

her. And I had this teacher,

19:49

Mr. Lebron, who paired

19:52

us together. We had a

19:54

writing assignment and he said, she

19:57

needs some help, and I think

20:00

you would be really good at helping her with this

20:02

writing assignment, and you need

20:04

some help with your presentation because

20:07

you're not good at speaking up.

20:09

And she's really brave and really

20:11

strong, and it

20:12

it changed my whole

20:15

life. I became friends

20:17

with this girl. We realized that we

20:19

needed each other. She taught

20:22

me how to speak up for myself

20:25

and how to not take bullying

20:28

from other people. And it helps

20:30

me relate to people that I wouldn't otherwise

20:32

relate to. And I just mister

20:35

Brown, if you're out there, I think value

20:37

all the time, and thank you so much. When

20:49

I was in my twenties, I went through a crippling

20:51

depression. It was as

20:54

if all the unprocessed trauma

20:56

from my childhood just showed up on my

20:58

door one day and moved in my apartment.

21:01

I began to feel like it would maybe be

21:03

better if I didn't bother being

21:06

alive at all. I

21:09

didn't think I had a lot of value to the world.

21:11

I didn't think that I was equipped to deal

21:14

with life. My closest

21:16

friend at the time, I saw my struggle

21:19

and gifted me a pass to this

21:21

African American meditation retreat

21:23

in northern California. It

21:26

seemed random at the time, but

21:28

I had nothing else to lose. On

21:31

the way up, I volunteered to pick up one of the

21:33

meditation teachers who was flying in from New

21:35

York. I had always been told

21:37

that when in pain, just find one

21:40

simple act of service that you

21:42

can manage and do it. The

21:45

teacher I picked up that day was the

21:47

Reverend Angel Kyoto Williams.

21:50

She was the first real Zen Buddhist I ever

21:52

met, and she was nothing like the movies told

21:54

me and ordained Zen practitioner would be.

21:57

She was black and queer and have the

21:59

no non since demeanor of a born and

22:01

raised New Yorker. And when

22:03

I attended her Dharma talks,

22:06

I was mesmerized. Here

22:08

she was talking about a liberation

22:11

beyond liberation. She

22:13

talked about love as a form of practice,

22:16

resistance to oppression as a spiritual

22:18

calling. She talked about meditation

22:21

and quiet as a path toward the full

22:23

realization of the self. I

22:26

didn't understand all of it,

22:29

but I trusted it. Something

22:31

about a woman who grew up in Queens

22:33

teaching me love and understanding just

22:36

hit me. We became

22:39

friends, and over the years I sometimes

22:41

have practiced with her often and sometimes

22:44

not so often. But the way

22:46

she has looked at me and seen

22:48

me and loved me, it

22:51

did for me what Fred Rogers did for

22:53

me. It gave me this very quiet,

22:56

very subtle sense that

22:58

I have value, that

23:01

I matter just as

23:03

I am.

23:06

In some way, Angel

23:08

might have saved my life. She's

23:11

written some books, including Being Black

23:14

and Then In the Art of Fearlessness and Grace and

23:16

Radical Dharma, Talking Love, Race

23:19

and Liberation. She's the founder

23:21

of the Center of Transformative Change in the Spiritual

23:23

director of the meditation based New Dharma

23:25

Community. As long as I've known

23:27

her, her work has been about freedom,

23:29

freedom from oppression, freedom

23:32

from anger and hate, freedom from

23:34

suffering, freedom for

23:36

all of us. I

23:38

could not talk about the work that Fred Rogers

23:41

did without talking to the person I

23:43

know who most directly aligns

23:45

with Fred's philosophy, even though

23:47

she came from a very different place

23:49

than Fred did. Angel

23:52

was a young activist in New York City. She

23:54

knows confrontation, so I

23:56

asked her how she managed

23:58

to overcome the year and anger

24:01

that can come with that. She told

24:03

me a story about what it was like to

24:05

return to New York after years

24:07

of practice in California. I

24:10

got off at Penn Station, as one as

24:12

one does, and I

24:15

left the relative

24:18

space of being

24:20

on the train and I entered into

24:23

the sea

24:25

of people that is the life

24:28

of New York. And

24:32

in that moment, like I felt this release

24:35

of like, oh so

24:39

good. And

24:42

it became super clear to

24:44

me in that moment that

24:47

what happens in that

24:49

space of confrontation is you

24:51

can see it as confrontation with

24:53

all of these other people, but

24:56

if you're open to it, you recognize that it's actually

24:59

what it is as a conference tation or a meeting with

25:01

yourself. Hmm. And

25:03

when it's a meeting with yourself, then

25:06

all of it is profound. Every

25:08

single person, every single person

25:11

is a meeting with yourself like velcro,

25:14

right, it's like if there's nothing to rub,

25:16

it just all like smooths by.

25:19

But if you've got a little like stickiness

25:21

there, it's like a little you know, then

25:24

people's hooks get on that your that

25:26

those fuzzy like gnarly places

25:29

in you, and so then

25:31

it's an opportunity instead

25:33

of you know, you're in

25:35

my way, you

25:36

get right. It

25:39

wasn't that. It was it was this like,

25:42

oh yeah, oh there, I am, oh

25:44

right, it's like and

25:47

and that that was

25:49

very very clear. Remember

25:51

you once described sitting meditation

25:53

as a kind of curiosity, and that really

25:56

struck me. I remember right after you profound

25:58

a profound curiosity. I remember sitting

26:01

after that at this retreat with that in my

26:03

head, and it was kind of hot and there

26:05

was a like a beat of sweat was

26:07

just down my face, and I

26:09

was really annoyed by it. And it was this embodiment

26:12

of something that I felt

26:14

like, I think I know what she's talking about,

26:17

what it means to just sit and be curious as opposed

26:19

to constantly trying to manage and control.

26:23

But but again I wonder, I wonder,

26:25

like, okay, so I just I say

26:27

people to people in the podcast, all right, everyone being curious,

26:30

domag and control, thank you, goodnight? And

26:32

then what keeps people from going off and doing that?

26:34

In other words, how does one it's one thing to

26:36

know something and a different thing to live it and

26:38

embody it. How do you cross that gap?

26:42

I think you, I mean, I think that's where practice

26:44

comes in, right, we practice

26:47

our way into contact

26:51

with reality, a

26:53

more truer reality, until

26:56

it is familiar

27:00

enough to us that we recognize the other thing

27:02

is false, so

27:05

that a bead of sweat is

27:08

just a bead of sweat. It

27:11

doesn't have to be an annoyance. It could

27:14

first just be a feeling.

27:17

Angel practices meditation in

27:20

the neighborhood. Fred helped kids

27:22

get there by showing them how to slow

27:24

down and get quiet. There were

27:26

long pauses on the show and

27:28

moments when Fred would ask us to stop and

27:30

reflect on a song or an

27:33

image or just breathe.

27:39

That kind of slowing down becomes really

27:42

useful when we're hurt or overwhelmed,

27:45

when someone makes us angry, that's when

27:47

we really need to understand our

27:49

motions to be able to get space

27:52

from them.

27:54

My practice is having

27:56

the space right, carving the space out,

27:59

and I mean just is a monumental feat

28:02

in a world that is like constantly moving,

28:04

and it moves maybe I would say about three

28:06

four times as fast as it did when I was

28:08

younger and entered into this practice. Just

28:11

the mental commitment to

28:14

carve that kind of space out in a in

28:16

a society that's so much about doing

28:18

to say, like I'm not gonna actually

28:20

be doing anything. I'm not going to be accomplished

28:23

anything or producing anything.

28:26

And I think as a as a black person in

28:28

particular, it frees me from

28:30

the notion that I am defined by what I'm

28:32

producing and for people

28:35

that were brought to this land

28:37

to to produce and

28:40

have in so many ways organized

28:42

ourselves and many of the campaigns organized

28:44

for us by our

28:47

leaders no shame or blame,

28:50

but have been organized around our our

28:52

our value in relationship to producing

28:55

things. Uh. And I'm fond

28:57

of saying these days. You

28:59

know, I'm like, get

29:01

us jobs, Like I mean, we have worked

29:03

all we have, need to work for the next

29:06

We don't. You know, we

29:09

don't. You don't need to teach us how

29:12

to work job skills. That's it, Like,

29:14

that's a that's an oxy moron.

29:17

Like our evidence of our job skills

29:20

is this country. That's

29:25

the man. They're not ready for this

29:27

one, they're not ready for this conversation.

29:30

So um. And so

29:33

what I saw is these

29:35

very particular opportunities

29:38

to be a fugitive from this construct.

29:42

So I think it's really it's it's really profound

29:45

that just the act of the choosing

29:47

of the silence, and

29:50

and I get to defy some things. And

29:52

I think what we're talking about is defying.

29:55

Yes, we are talking about defying, I mean,

29:57

and that is the thing I mean, they're Defiance is

29:59

a really great word to bring

30:01

into this conversation because I feel like when

30:04

I'm talking about the power of someone

30:07

representing love in the way that Fred Rogers

30:09

represented it, and the way that that

30:11

love, the way Fred Rogers said

30:13

to kids, you matter in a

30:15

way that maybe no one else in that kid's

30:17

life was telling them. It's tempting

30:19

to think of that as a kind of affirmation and a

30:22

kind of and that's what's that's what's made fun of when

30:24

we make fun of Fred Rogers. But the more

30:26

I think about it, the more I think of it as an act

30:28

of denial, an act of resistance,

30:31

denying this what

30:33

he saw encroaching

30:35

on kids and what then

30:38

proceeded to over the next because he started in nine, so

30:40

the world was similar

30:42

in some ways but wildly different in other

30:44

ways, and that

30:46

he wanted to deny this.

30:49

What he saw was this encroaching idea

30:51

that your value was only based

30:54

on how how much you please people, or

30:56

how much people like you or how much money you earn,

30:59

or if you could ap them all up, you can earn a lot of money.

31:01

Then people are pleased and they like you maybe

31:03

get that all together. But really, what Fred

31:05

Rogers was talking about, seen through

31:08

certain lends, was a kind of resistance to

31:11

the to the momentum of our

31:13

culture. And

31:16

that's where I think of him as like an incredibly

31:19

strong person. No. I think

31:22

that his his his active resistance

31:24

was fairly um

31:27

demonstrated and strong and persistent

31:30

and you know all of the things

31:32

that make a warrior a warrior, right,

31:34

Like not a war monger, not a soldier, right,

31:37

but a warrior. What is that

31:39

difference? Um, I think

31:41

of soldiers is following instructions, you

31:44

know. I think as I think of warriors

31:46

in the heroic sense of warrior, as

31:49

people that are charged, right,

31:52

They're charged with a cause. I

31:55

think the power and the potency

31:57

of him, like any true

32:01

teacher of wisdom,

32:03

is that he he was talking to you each

32:06

and every single time. And

32:09

maybe he would turn his attention and he would talk

32:12

to Mr mcpheeley or you know whoever

32:14

else or you know, um,

32:16

but there were those times when he turned

32:18

directly to the camera and he spoke

32:20

to you, he spoke to me,

32:23

and so that held

32:26

ness, especially

32:30

for those of us that were made to feel

32:32

as if the society wasn't constructed

32:34

for our sense of belonging unless

32:36

we vied for that belonging, unless

32:39

we quote unquote earned that belonging

32:43

to have someone turned to you

32:45

directly you and

32:47

say, just as you are, your

32:50

loved, just

32:52

as you are, exactly as you are in

32:54

this moment, not another

32:56

moment, not a moment to come, not

32:59

a promised moment. Right

33:01

even even our religions were selling

33:04

us on a promised moment to come one

33:06

day, and he was saying,

33:08

no, right now, like right

33:11

this particular moment, which I think

33:13

of, as you know, as

33:15

Howard Thurman would say, is like the religion

33:17

of Jesus, not the religion about Jesus

33:20

right doing the work of Jesus.

33:23

That was to like hold love right

33:25

there in the space. And

33:28

you know, when we say this word love, people are

33:30

probably turning to their warm fuzzy

33:32

feelings and looking for that. And I'm not talking

33:34

about the warm fuzzy feelings. And

33:36

if it generated warm fuzzy feelings for you,

33:39

great, but I think what it generated

33:41

from me is space, right,

33:44

it's the space. It was the space to be me.

33:46

I didn't look at Fred Rogerson

33:49

go oh, my god, warm and fuzzy.

33:51

I love him, you know. In

33:54

fact, I didn't think much about him,

33:57

and I think that that is the most profound love

34:01

is it to make me think about him and how I

34:03

felt about him. It made me think about how it

34:05

felt about me. How

34:08

do you feel about you? What

34:12

is your value? How

34:15

do you even know? Above

34:18

my desk at home, where I write

34:20

this, I have a small reminder

34:22

that says you are

34:25

enough. I look at

34:27

it all the time, not because

34:29

I believe it, but because I

34:32

actually don't. I

34:35

mean, I am enough for what,

34:38

for you, for the world,

34:41

for me. In

34:44

my forty or five years, I've had a

34:46

lot of experiences, but maybe

34:48

the most defining one is

34:50

the experience of being shown in myrriad

34:53

ways that I'm not enough,

34:56

that my life doesn't matter.

35:00

Many people have had this same experience.

35:04

My mother and I were homeless for a time,

35:06

often hungry. I was violently

35:08

sexually assaulted at the age of seven, and

35:10

it wouldn't be the last time I

35:13

was called racial slurs by classmates

35:16

and even occasionally by teachers.

35:19

I grew up to watch people who looked like me

35:21

beat and shot on television while

35:24

unarmed, only to have the justice

35:26

system decide time and time and

35:29

time again that no wrong

35:31

had been committed in the eyes of the law.

35:34

I've looked down the barrel of guns just

35:37

because people thought my mother and I didn't

35:39

belong in the neighborhood that we lived

35:41

in. Am

35:44

I enough? Do

35:46

I have value? Does

35:49

my life really matter?

35:54

I can tell myself that it does, But

35:58

what does it take for me to believe

36:00

it? Of

36:04

course, not believing that I am enough? It's

36:06

not just a personal problem.

36:09

It's a collective one, because

36:11

how can I believe in your value

36:14

if I don't even believe in my own In

36:17

this life, people like me and maybe like you,

36:20

we've had to find our own value,

36:23

our own worth. And

36:25

one voice, like the voice of Fred Rogers

36:27

telling me that I am enough is powerful

36:30

and it is beautiful, and I want

36:32

to believe it. I love believing it.

36:35

But his voice alone is

36:37

not enough to undo

36:40

an entire history. I

36:43

wish it was, but

36:45

it's not. But

36:51

his example, the

36:53

way he lived now, that has

36:56

impact, the way Reverend

36:58

Angel lives, that has impact the

37:00

people in your lives that you've called to tell us

37:03

about that has impact.

37:07

Fred Rogers lived his life in service to

37:09

something greater than himself. Let's

37:11

call it love, and not warm feelings.

37:14

I like you a lot. Love, but love

37:16

in the way that Ashley defines it as

37:18

action, as accountability, Love

37:20

in the way that Reverend Angel defines it as

37:23

space. Space to see

37:25

others, to understand others.

37:29

This was not his only devotion, but

37:32

it seemed to be his primary devotion,

37:35

and I don't think he could have done this work without

37:37

it. Fred

37:40

was devoted and disciplined. He

37:43

swam every morning, He rose early

37:45

and studied and prayed and meditated

37:47

on how he would be an active force

37:50

for good every day. A

37:52

producer for his Showow told us that each

37:54

time he entered the TV studio he uttered a

37:56

small prayer, Dear God,

37:59

lets some part of this be

38:01

yours. He

38:04

famously made sure that every one of

38:06

the hundreds of letters he received each week

38:08

was thoughtfully answered. His

38:10

dedication was to loving

38:13

us, accepting us, showing

38:16

up for us every day. For nine

38:18

episodes forty years. Through

38:21

the television neighborhood he created, he

38:23

showed us how to love like

38:26

that too. That

38:29

was Fred Rogers way of

38:31

making the world better? So

38:36

what is yours? There

38:46

is no one sentence I can say,

38:49

or that Fred Rogers can say that

38:52

solves all of our problems. Our

38:55

freedom, our love for ourselves,

38:58

our care for one another does

39:00

not come overnight. It

39:02

is something we build bit by

39:05

bit, one action at a time,

39:07

maybe even one moment at

39:09

a time. But

39:12

I do not have doubt. I

39:15

believe in your ability to

39:17

imagine and live something

39:21

better than this because

39:24

I'm learning to do it myself. I'm

39:28

proud of you. I'm grateful

39:31

to you, and I

39:33

love you. Here's

39:38

the sweater going into the

39:40

closet. Here's

39:47

the jacket going

39:51

on. Me hmm.

39:59

There'll be the night time and

40:03

then I'll come the new day, and

40:06

that's when you and I will be together again.

40:31

Thank you for listening to Finding

40:33

Fred. Our show is

40:35

produced by Transmitter Media. The team

40:37

is Dan O'Donnell, Jordan Bailey, and Maddie

40:39

Foley. Our editor is Sarah Nicks.

40:42

The executive producer for Transmitter Media is

40:44

Gretta Cohne. Executive producers

40:46

at Fatherly are Simon Isaac's and Andrew

40:49

Berman. Thanks to the team at I Heart

40:51

Media.

40:55

Special thanks to all of our guests.

40:57

Many thanks also to Fred Rogers Productions

40:59

to show Negri into the studio. Engineers

41:02

at You See Berkeley. Extra

41:06

special thanks to Tim lie Barger who

41:09

runs the site neighborhood archive dot

41:11

com. It's a listing of every song, every

41:13

episode, every character on Mr. Rogers

41:15

Neighborhood. It's been an amazing resource

41:18

for our team. Rick

41:20

Kwan makes the show sound beautiful. Theme

41:22

music is by Blue Dot Sessions and interstitial

41:25

music by Alison Layton Brown. That's

41:28

it for our show. You can come

41:30

back and listen to all of our episodes and

41:32

tell your friends to do the same. I'm

41:34

Carvil Wallace. Thank you for listening.