Won't you be my neighbor?

When I was part of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, a formative time of my academic year, I always had my eye on graduation. Not terribly surprising I am sure. Every student looks forward to the time when their classwork is done and the move to the part of the work. Well, as that time came closer and closer I learned that each graduating class selects their own commencement speaker.  

My class wanted to aim high; aim as high as we could. And so as I came to the meetings, I was surprised to hear how high we sought to go...  

We first wondered who was the highest ranking Presbyterian in our government. At the time it was Condoleezza Rice, who served as 66th Secretary of State. Her father was a Presbyterian Minister from Alabama. Doubting she would be accessible or able to speak to our class during commencement, we looked elsewhere.  

The next person in line was a famous alumni of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and on National Cardigan Day, I have been thinking about him a lot: Fred Rogers. I enjoyed his television show as a boy with my family. 

Mr. Rogers was often the selection to speak at PTS graduations. I do not know how often he was to speak to the graduates based on his work with PBS. But his influence on my life, and on the life of an entire generation, cannot be denied. 

As Bethesda prepares to handout turkeys again this next week I was reminded of something that Mr. Rogers once said in the face of a hard world: "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." 

These words came from Fred's mother as young Fred watched the news and was afraid of what he saw and heard reported by the anchors. Her wise words spoke to him about how to change his perspective and look for something positive when everyone around him saw only the negative and the deficit. This was a lesson that he would seek to pass on to generations of children who watched his show and saw those cardigans zipped up each day and a new song was sung to them.  

This is also the challenge that the church should be seeking to adopt as well. 

Find the helpers. Be the helpers. And together we can help move the change the world out into the community where God sends us. It is not always easy but as Mr. Rogers reminds us, if we look, we can see people who are helping. And I wonder, if we might join in the work of helping in this community?