QUARANTINE BLOG # 45

May 14, 2020

I did something yesterday I’ve never done before.  I walked into a bank wearing a mask.  And no one pulled a weapon on me.

👉 Bonnie and I went through the drive-thru at a local fast food restaurant for lunch yesterday.  The woman on the other end of the squawk box kept saying, “Huh?”  When I had given her the last item, she said, “Will that be all?”  I said, “No, ma’am.  Please say ‘excuse me’ instead of ‘huh.’”  She said, “Excuse me?”  I said, “Thank you!”

👉  The human eye can distinguish any single shade of color from more than a million others, but few colors mean as much to us as red. One proof of our attachment lies in our language.

We roll out the red carpet, catch crooks red-handed, and dread getting caught in red tape. We stop at red lights, and ignore red herrings.

We celebrate red-letter days, a phrase that dates back to the 14th century when clergy produced calendars. They would use black ink for writing most of the calendar, but used red ink – that was easy to see at a glance – to mark important dates.

Neanderthals painted cave walls with red ochre. In ancient China, red was considered symbolic of prosperity and health. In the Arab world, it was a male color, emblematic of heat and vitality.

Assigning meaning to a color, is one thing. Creating the color itself is very different. Elusive and expensive, red cloth became the prize possession of the wealthy. Kings wore red. In classical Rome red became so synonymous with status that the city’s most powerful men were called coccinati –  the ones who wear red.

Tomorrow we’ll watch red rise in prominence, then observe its decline, and finally its recovery.  Stay tuned.

👉  “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” (1968-2001)

For 31 seasons, Fred Rogers was a gentle, reassuring voice to young children with his quiet show that encouraged imagination, helped them overcome fears, and used simple songs to underscore key points. At some point in each episode, a mini trolley car would show up, taking viewers to the Land of Make-Believe, where they’d meet puppet characters like King Friday, Daniel Striped Tiger, and Lady Elaine Fairchilde.

That’s the basics.  Now let’s look at Fred Rogers, the man, the minister to a generation.

Mr. Rogers was a music major at Rollins College in Florida with plans to go to seminary. In 1951, on a trip home to Latrobe, Pennsylvania, he learned that his parents had purchased a television. He turned it on, and “there were people throwing pies at one another.” He believed, right then, that this thing called television could be used “for the broadcasting of grace through the land.”

Rather than  pursue studies in theology as he had planned, he began a television career as an assistant and floor manager of the music programs for NBC in New York City. But he soon discovered commercial television was not for him. In 1953, he moved back Pittsburgh to help found WQED, the first community-supported educational television station in the nation.

Mr. Rogers began his career on WQED as co-producer, puppeteer and organist on “The Children’s Corner.” He attended seminary during his lunch hours. He was ordained in the United Presbyterian Church with a special charge to serve children and families through television.

In 1966 he launched “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.”  Fred Rogers took off his jacket and put on a sweater his mother had made him, a cardigan with a zipper. Then he took off his shoes and put on a pair of navy-blue canvas boating sneakers.

He did the same thing the next day, and then the next, until he had done those same things, 865 times, at the beginning of 865 television programs, over a span of 31 years.

Take the time to watch the two YouTube videos below.  And for his induction into the TV Hall of Fame, have Kleenex handy.

His testimony before a Senate committee to help support national public television: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySFCzvq9z14

Fred Rogers inducted into TV Hall of Fame:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcNxY4TudXo

It will take you about 30 minutes to the article from Esquire magazine.  There are a  couple of the words in the article you wouldn’t say around people you love.  But you will smile and probably cry and catch a glimpse of a great servant of God: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a27134/can-you-say-hero-esq1198/

Tomorrow, a potpourri of children’s television shows.  And I am saving one special feature from one of the shows we’ve talked about until Sunday.

👉 On this day in 1973, America’s first space station, Skylab, made out of left-over Apollo moon mission spacecraft, was launched into orbit around the earth. Eleven days later, U.S. astronauts Charles Conrad, Joseph Kerwin, and Paul Weitz made a rendezvous with Skylab, repairing a jammed solar panel and conducting scientific experiments during their 28-day stay aboard the space station.

Skylab was a great success, safely housing three separate three-man crews for extended periods of time and exceeding pre-mission plans for scientific study. It carried the most varied assortment of experimental equipment ever assembled in a single spacecraft to that date. Five years after the last Skylab mission, the space station’s orbit began to deteriorate, and on July 11, 1979, the parts of the space station that did not burn up in the atmosphere came down on Australia and into the Indian Ocean.

👉  What’s troubling you? It is hard not to be troubled about things these days. Plans have been canceled. Significant life events have been postponed. Jobs have been lost. People have died because of COVID19. And there’s little we can do to change the situation. We aren’t in control. This tiny virus has affected every aspect of our every-day lives. No doubt, it is bound to affect our future way of life, too.

It is troubling, but then Jesus speaks over our anxiety and distress: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me” (John 14:1). Jesus came to calm our troubled hearts. He took away the troubles of experienced fishermen by quieting a raging storm. He took away wedding troubles by changing water into wine. He took away hunger troubles by feeding thousands with a few loaves and fish. In fact, He took away every trouble that sin and death caused by overcoming them on the cross. And He silenced death by rising from the grave.

What do you want to do when trouble comes your way? Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God who gives us the victory through our Lord, Jesus Christ.

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