Day: April 27, 2026

Imagine we all walked into the world with the belief that each person was inherently worthy. Imagine if our goal was to help each recognize that we are worthy of being loved. Imagine if we sought to listen more than we spoke.  Fred Rogers

With all of the violence and hate in the world today I find myself looking back on my life and thinking of the moments when I felt that it was possible for humans to actually get along with each other. Watching Mr Rogers when I was a young girl always made me feel comfortable and positive about the direction in which the world was moving. He reminded me of my Uncle Willie who was a good and humble man who always seemed to be thinking about other people rather than himself. He was so observant that he noticed someone who was feeling sad or lost when nobody else did. He loved everyone with the same quiet and reassuring compassion that Mr. Rogers seemed to have. 

Of course the world is not a wonderland filled with puppets and nice people. As I grew I saw anger, misunderstanding, unwillingness to get along or attempt to understand our differing points of view. My college years were dominated by protests, movements and assassinations. I suppose that all of the violence made me realize how truly fragile life is and when I met the man who would be my husband I found no reason to wait to begin our life together. I was quite young when I married but the loss of my father and my mother’s mental illness had transformed me into an old soul who knew how to adult. Somehow the challenges that I had already endured insured that I would adjust to situations without a blink but I still wondered if we would ever reach a time when the world felt more like the one that Fred Rogers imagined. 

I longed for such a place more and more as I worked with one group of students after another. I saw how earnest and worthy every one of them was no matter what circumstances had affected their lives. Rich and poor, from many different cultures and races they all wanted the same things that I wanted, a world that would love them just as they were. 

There were indeed times when i believed that we were moving closer and closer to the kind of world where every person is treasured. There were of course outliers just as there will always be but for the most part we seemed to be working together as humans to to listen more and to help every person reach his or her potential. I watched the city in which I grew become one of the most diverse places in the world and we actually got along and helped each other. I had no idea that hate was brewing in an undercurrent. I naively believed that we had conquered so much of the hate that has plagued the world that nothing would change our forward motion toward the kind of world that Mr. Rogers envisioned with his puppets and little trains. 

The middle of my life was enchanting. I loved my work. I loved my family. I loved my friends who were many. I had sisters among my friends and spent weekends laughing and living life with them. My daughters were smart and beautiful and just as open and honest and loving as I had always hoped they would be. Our world did become more and more willing to embrace our differing ways of being. Nothing was perfect but it was a time that felt so good then fear knocked on the door and stole our innocence and willingness to trust each other when two planes flew right through the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. 

For a time it felt as though we were going to take the high road as humans. We worked together to sort things out. We did not break, but a fear silently took hold that cultivated the kind of closed thinking that we had seemed to put behind us. We differed on how to deal with our changing world. Schools became killing grounds. Guns became the choice for feeling comfortable in a world that felt dangerous. Climate change caught up with us. People that I loved with all of my heart began to die along with the older generation of my family. As a people we seemed unable to agree on how to get along. A movement began that strictly classified people as being worthy or unworthy. We seemed to be living on a razor’s edge and then the whole world was sickened by a virus that killed millions before we humans were able to find ways to halt its progress. How to proceed became a political football rather than a moment to work together for the good of all. We divided into camps and pointed fingers at each other. The deadly shootings continued because we were never able to agree on ways to protect everyone. The Mr. Rogers dream seemed to be shattered when even our system of voting felt suddenly fragile with a president chiding his followers to demand that a legal election was rigged. Our nation’s capital became the site of an insurrection and the fabric of our cooperative spirit was rent in two. 

Is this how it felt during the Civil War when brother fought against brother? Are we not thinking of how badly this is affecting our young? Why are we insisting that one group is good and the other is bad? Why are we allowing the man who leads our nation to do whatever he wants without consulting Congress or wanting to now how each of us feels. Why have we become enemies of each other? Why do the words from our president sound so threatening to anyone who does not agree with him? Why does the violence seem to be consuming us?

There is a level of nationwide anxiety unlike any I have ever before seen. Little wonder that anyone with a sick mind is reacting badly. We don’t know whose words to trust anymore. We are urged to turn on each other by the very man who should be pulling us together. We are involved in a war that we never wanted. Our lives are upside down and inside out and if we speak out we are counted as being treasonous. Worst of all there is no end to the violence. Up is down and down is up. Truth is difficult to find. 

I am old enough and tough enough to know that we will get through this juncture and maybe even restore hope and trust in or nation. We are all brothers and sisters with dreams and needs to be recognized. We should all demand that nobody should be allowed  to make us enemies without criticism. We must come together and stop the violence and hate. It begins with those in whom we entrust our votes and our expectations. We will only heal when we recognize that everyone is worthy of being loved and when we begin to listen to each other again. No one person should be able to make us turn on one another no matter what his status may be. If we are willing to try we may imagine a better world and we must get there without violence.