Mr. Rogers has always been someone I have looked up to. I even dressed up as him for Halloween this year. And I was just feeling like I needed some of that kindness and positivity in my life so I found this on Libby and gave it a listen.

This book is mostly a collection of inspirational writings. I think it might perhaps be best used as a book you keep on hand and read one of each day. Or maybe like one of those daily affirmational videos I have seen floating around. I, however, listened to an audiobook version. The cast does a wonderful job and the added speeches and introduction by Joanne Rogers was charming while also providing some context. I also particularly enjoyed some audio recordings of speeches Mr. Rodger had given. All in all, this was the exact experience I was hoping it would be. Here are some passages that I particularly enjoyed:

“The child is in me still and sometimes not so still.”

“Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is 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.”

“One summer, midway through Seminary, I was on a weekend vacation in a little town in New England. I decided on Sunday to go hear a visiting preacher in the little town’s chapel. I heard the worst sermon I could have ever imagined. I sat in the pew thinking, “He’s going against every rule they’re teaching us about preaching. What a waste of time!” That’s what I thought until the very end of the sermon when I happened to see the person beside me with tears in her eyes whispering, “He said exactly what I needed to hear.” It was then that I knew something very important had happened in that service. The woman beside me had come in need. Somehow the words of that poorly crafted sermon had been translated into a message that spoke to her heart. On the other hand, I had come in judgment, and I heard nothing but the faults.

It was a long time before I realized it, but that sermon’s effect on the person beside me turned out to be one of the great lessons of my life. Thanks to that preacher and listener-in-need, I now know that the space between a person doing his or her best to deliver a message of good news and the needy listener is holy ground. Recognizing that seems to have allowed me to forgive myself for being the accuser that day. In fact, that New England Sunday experience has fueled my desire to be a better advocate, a better “neighbor,” wherever I am.”

And lastly, something I hope to work on and would love to see happen more in my life:

“It's very dramatic when two people come together to work something out. It's easy to take a gun and annihilate your opposition, but what is really exciting to me is to see people with differing views come together and finally respect each other.”