Ann: Mister Rogers? I can see your smile and feel your quiet happiness.
Mister Rogers: Fred, just Fred, I thought we settled that. And thank you for receiving my gift to you of that happiness. I want to add my voice, quiet as it is, to those of Robin, Richard, and Frederic Douglass in celebration of a day of revelations and homecoming.
Gebo, the gifts of parental love, sexual love, friendship, and holy love all join together to make up the essence of our Creator. We spring from this unending fountain of love. That is Spirit’s gift to us. If we dive deep, if we take a moment simply to notice the gifts we have received in this lifetime, we will extrapolate further to see that our lives, your life, your particular life, is a gift of monumental proportions not only to you but to everyone with whom you come in contact.
Sometimes it is hard to see when anger and injustice seem to tangle our emotions in barbed wire around our feet. Yes, there is anger and injustice, but there is also acceptance, generosity, and love. Again, you have only to look about you to find a myriad of examples of giving, gifts offered and gifts received.
As you take these examples, these gifts, into your heart, you will find that those tangles around your feet melting away, and you will become free to tread your intended path.
It is true. It is real. God’s love is real. We are made up of love, and we are beginning to claim these gifts as central to human existence. All it took was centuries of persecution, a revisitation of plague, and a leader wedded to darkness to throw into relief the reality of the world as it could be if we all take it upon ourselves to reflect God’s love.
I am praying for each and everyone one of you. You do not need to change, for God loves you just the way you are. You just need to open your eyes more fully to gifts that he has provided the world in the precious gift of your presence there. Thank you for being you.
July 1, 2020