It’s easy to tease about a man who always wears a cardigan and plays with puppets. Mr. Rogers. Oh, Mr. Rogers. We loved him as kids, but then somehow got jaded enough as adults to poke fun at this man who sparked our imaginations not so (or maybe oh so) many years ago.
Is it strange that some of my favorite sayings in the world come from Dr. Seuss and A.A. Milne? Fred Rogers is in that company of beloved “men of sweet words” in my mind. Words that capture the matters of the heart. The man who just wanted to “be my neighbor” said this: “In the external scheme of things, shining moments are as brief as the twinkling of an eye, yet such twinklings are what eternity is made of – moments when we human beings can say “I love you,” “I’m proud of you,” “I forgive you,” “I’m grateful for you.” That’s what eternity is made of: invisible, imperishable good stuff.”
Well said, Fred. You reiterated what we already know, the truth that we too often forget. What we’re told in 1 Corinthians 13 – “Love never fails.” Or, as the English Standard Version puts it, “Love never ends.” It is constant. Ongoing. And, as Mr. Rogers put it, eternal. That’s because God is love. No beginning or end.
Which gives me great hope and freedom in knowing not only that I am loved by a God who, by nature, CANNOT STOP loving me, but also that any time I love another human being with God’s type of unconditional love, it is never in vain. I might not get to see all of the results. I may not even receive love back. But I have tapped into the miracle of touching another life with something that reflects God Himself. Something unending. Something ETERNAL. That is mind-bending at the very least. LOVE. It’s the one thing that I can do that will outlive and outlast me. Loving each person I come in contact with extends God’s fingers in practical ways to the hurting, the lonely, the lost.
Love can be exhausting. There is no down time for the eternal.
Lucky for us, we have the endless source Himself. Jesus. The author and perfecter of our faith, our love. He pours in so we can pour out. A constant moving flow, never meant to stagnate. Always fresh. Always available. Never ending. Yep. Eternal.
And so, Mr. Rogers, thank you for the reminder today. Love IS eternal. It always has purpose and place. It is never in vain. As you put it, “invisible, imperishable good stuff”.
“We’ll be Friends Forever, won’t we, Pooh?’ asked Piglet.
Even longer,’ Pooh answered.” – A.A. Milne
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not. – Dr. Seuss (The Lorax)
1 Corinthians 13 – If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecyand can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror;then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
