I admit these were strange songs to play joyfully in the car with the windows down. I didn’t even select them. They came on shuffle. But I certainly chose to enjoy them. There I was, cruising through Ann Arbor on a 70 degree-day with the wind blowing through my hair, listening to Mr. Rogers.
It’s such a good feeling to know you’re alive!
It’s such a happy feeling you’re growing inside,
And when you wake up ready to say
I think I’ll make a snappy new day! (Snap, Snap!)
Of course, this is the closing song of every episode of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. And at the end of the song, Fred Rogers would always say the same thing. This also played out of my window.
“You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you.”
I’ve always found it interesting that he chose to say “your” being you. It could have been less clunky if he said, “You know how, by just being you.” But I wonder if he said “your” because it’s good for us to make “being you,” something that is really ours — a kind of specialness that can’t be taken away.
Good lesson.
Next the hymn “How Firm a Foundation” came on. I don’t make it a habit to play hymns in my car (though no shade to anyone who does) but this one is special to me. I used to love watching one of my most formative and influential people sing this hymn. He would come totally alive singing these words:
The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
that soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake.
He was so deeply convicted, and you knew that his fervent singing was connected to stories of prevailing in struggle and feeling loved within it all.
I remembered that Fred Rogers also used to say,
Values “are caught, not taught.”
I caught this one. We watch others and internalize so much — for good and for ill. I’m grateful for the ones who have shaped us well.
Good lesson.
—Renee Roederer
Smuggling Grace 