Mr. Rogers is gone, and with him, I fear, the spirit of the Good Neighbor. Fred Rogers seemed to exude the very kindness and selflessness which he hoped to instill in legions of American children, many of which are now all grown up. With so many children tuning in for so long, one might expect that we'd be a nation of kind and selfless grown children. Alas, the evidence seems suspect.

"It's a beautiful day in the Neighborhood" is the familiar refrain that Mr. Rogers invoked to start each show. Now, that's not to say that it never rains in the Neighborhood, or that bad things never happen, yet every day was a beautiful day. From a very Caucasian cardigan-wearing guy, that kind of thinking can be dismissed as naïve and wishful. Yet it echoes the words of native peoples, the Buddha, the Christ, and scores of others who insist that everything under the sun is indeed beautiful.

So where is the beauty in war? Where do we look to see the beauty of hungry children? Is there anything we can do as individuals and collectively to enhance and encourage the beauty?

Looking about the global Neighborhood today, it's no wonder Mr. Rogers opted out for an alternative neighborhood. Despite his years of effort, it would appear that aggression, intolerance, and right-by-might have won the day. That is not to say that there aren't millions of children and grown children who have taken to heart the message of kindness and caring that Mr. Rogers embodied. Yet somehow, we as a nation are known about the world neighborhood as reckless bullies. Has Mr. Rogers' lifetime of effort ultimately failed?

The sense of respect and, dare I say, obligation to others is easy to enact when it's easy, but what happens when the "other" is very different? Frightening? Uncooperative? Are we no longer bound by our commitment to kindness and understanding? It's hard to know what Mr. Rogers might have done if someone physically assaulted him on the street, but I have a sense that he, like the Dalai Lama, wouldn't put up much of a fight. It's even less likely that he would pre-emptively strike a Neighbor who he feared might harm him. It's also pretty unlikely that Mr. Rogers would be stockpiling armaments for decades, and charging the Neighborhood 50 cents on the tax dollar for weapons of indefensible destruction.

Now, I'm not unaware that this is a dangerous, volatile world, nor was Fred Rogers. However, the bulk of the danger is a direct result of the actions of "leaders", not of the common people. We in the Neighborhood have foolishly entrusted the Power Elite with our fate and well-being, and those of future generations. As a result, the vested interests of those seeking even MORE money and power have usurped our collective power, subjugated us into quasi-indentured servitude, and instead of feeding and sheltering all the world's neighbors, murder the innocent in the name of conquest. Instead of professing an attitude of acceptance, tolerance, and shared commitment, we in this nation are fed a steady diet of "get mine first". In a competitive society, every Neighbor is a threat who may wish to take your "stuff", or gain an advantage which, by rights, is yours. The mathematics of that kind of thinking imply that we are ALL entitled to everything, and the first one there gets to take it all, come what may. Those who do not get there first can just groan and bear it.

Like it or not, we are living in extremely unique times. By virtue of being alive right now, history has called upon us to define the human race. Will the human experiment ultimately be a failure? Will the cosmos shrug its grand shoulders upon our self-designed violent demise? Or will we rise to the divine ideals that we claim as the essence of our being?

Right now, right this minute, today, the People of the world are connected in ways never before imagined. For the first time, the Power Elite is not the only potent network. The Internet is one prime example of how common people, from Brattleboro to Baghdad, can link with one another, and peacefully assert that peace must have more value than war. Not only is this an opportunity for us to stop war and aggression, it may well be the advent of a peaceful world-wide revolution in which the Have-nots of the world tell the Haves that we've come for our stuff. The common factor in the downward spiral of this species has been passing our collective power over to those who abuse it.

Somewhere along the way a breach developed between the ideal of being loving and what many cynically call "reality". Nearly everyone can cite a philosophical source of Love, whether it be Jesus, Mohammad, Buddha, or Mr. Rogers. The higher-minded notion of loving one's neighbor too often becomes eclipsed by the urge to dominate, whether on the world stage or between individuals. At what point is it reasonable to abandon our ideals?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., like Ghandi before him, remained dedicated to non-violence, all the while knowing that his life would likely end by violence. Beyond his own mortality, there was a dream. Even when accepted "reality" might have "allowed for" a violent response, King refused. Is it mere lip-service that we esteem King, Ghandi, and Mr. Rogers as virtuous? Is it just too difficult for the rest of us to walk the walk?

It seems there will always be violence and aggression. There is no getting around it. But will we be able to stave of the seemingly inevitable demise of our species by becoming even more violent? Is it possible that the paradigm needs to shift?

Daniel Berrigan, who recently died after giving his entire life to peace, said: "One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. It may or may not be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt: the total inability of violence to change anything for the better"

Would you be mine?………could you be mine?………..won't you be my Neighbor?

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Steve West lives in Vermont, is a member of Relative Strangers, and invites nice emails at mail@relativestrangers.com

Copyright (c) 2003 by Steve West. All rights reserved. This copyright protects Steve West's right to future publication of his work. Nonprofit, activist, and educational groups may circulate this essay (forward it, reprint it, translate it, post it, or reproduce it) for nonprofit uses. Please do not change any part of it without permission. Contact Steve at mail@relativestrangers.com.

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