Last night we saw the film “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” about Mr. Rogers. This film is a must-see for everyone. It isn’t all roses and lollipops and will give you much to think about. It is still with me this morning. I was so touched by many parts of the story of Mr. Rogers’ life and career.

There is this one statement that keeps coming back to me. On his deathbed he asked his wife, if she thought he was a sheep. He was a Christian and was talking about the story in the Bible of God dividing the sheep (good people) from goats (sinners). I wept at the thought that anyone would ask themselves this question when they were ready to pass on to the next expression. That it was someone who had given so much good to the world was even more sad to me.

Today, I am even more convinced of how important it is to see the good not just in myself, but in everyone. We are not the things we did or the color of our skin or our sexual orientation. We are God incarnate, beautiful, whole, and good. We come from the Source and essence of Life that is Good.

I believe the more we can see this in ourselves and others, the more it will appear. Can we see beneath the layers of our experiences? Can we love ourselves no matter what? Can we offer that love to a world that needs us to recognize the good right now?

At the end of film there was a section when they kept asking  what would Mr. Rogers do about the troubles that were occurring in the present world? The filmmaker turned to us and said it’s not about what would Mr. Rogers do; no, the question is what will we do.

We’ve relied on other prophets, seers, and spiritual giants, philosophers, creators of movements, messiahs, and other people whom we’ve put on pedestals for so long that we have not claimed our own spiritual feet for walking. What the world needs now is us. It needs us to be our beautiful selves, our intuitive selves, our magnificent selves. It doesn’t matter what we are experiencing, we can still walk with spiritual feet through it all. I heard a lady on Facebook today who was ready to go into hospice give me a message of love and hope. She was walking with her spiritual feet in the midst of suffering.

It’s not too late to love our planet and its people back to wholeness. We are not lost and the world is not evil. Whatever anyone is telling us or we are telling ourselves to the contrary, take a moment to see the beauty in a child’s smile, the beauty in a wildflower, the wholeness in the sick, the richness in the poor.

Ernest Holmes wrote, “I behold the Beautiful and the pleasant. My eyes see only that which is beautiful to look upon. I will not see anything else nor believe in anything else. I know that beauty has entered into my life and will always remain there. I see only the beautiful.”

This is not an ostrich with his head in the sand, this is the way to making the world a more beautiful place. It is not denying what is there, it is seeing right through it to the unseen. It is the way that Jesus walked, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr. and many others who were examples of walking with their spiritual feet through every experience and appearance of suffering.

Now it’s our turn. Change comes by thinking a whole new story. Let’s get to work. I invite us to put on our spiritual shoes and gloves and start plowing into the beautiful.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita