Look to the Helpers
What it means to be the miracle we've been praying for
I often see people saying "Look for the helpers is for kids, you're the adult, YOU'RE the helper!" a lot, but Mr. Rogers wouldn't have said kids can't help, and he definitely wouldn't have said adults should "just do it" instead of looking around for people who are already doing the work, learning from them and following their lead, and then joining in with where their abilities meet the actual needs and requests of those they are helping. The work is already being done, and we can't just "be the helper" without understanding it and our place in it.
You are not too young to be a helper. And you are not too old to need help, to defeat despair with hope, and to join in the work already in motion. Remember it's about when we are shocked by tragedy and overwhelmed by suffering. It's about what you do when you're staring down images of death and disaster, and then it's about where to look next. You see the debris on TV. You see the virus totals. You see the crying kids. But then… you see the firefighters, doctors, nurses, volunteers, etc. Ah. There.
It's still Giving Tuesday as I'm writing this, and maybe you can be a helper in a recurring or one-time donation. Maybe you don't have money but you have a few hours to spare, if you bring the kids along with you. Maybe you don't have time or money, but you have a social media following to inform others, a place of influence in policy, an organization you lead, a church or club you can rally, a professional skill you can use pro bono, a boat or a car or a business to run aid and relief efforts from.
Whether you're defending human rights by filing suits and explaining contracts, or book-keeping for a nonprofit, or paying a construction crew out of your own pocket to rebuild the community center after a big storm, there's a way to help. You can be an 8-year-old shopping for an Angel Tree gift or a 90-year-old knitting blankets for foster babies or a 60-year-old making phone calls and grocery runs for a disabled neighbor. You can look, LEARN from the helpers, and go do it too.
But please, I say this delicately, do not jump in like a missionary, hero-complex White savior and try to just "help" without looking to the helpers first. No one needs the worn-out-snow-coats sent to Haiti after the earthquake incident ever again. No one wants your broken appliance as a "donation" they have to be grateful for. Nonprofits can't spend all their time making you feel needed. No finding youth pastors a house in a Latin American country for teens to paint over and over each summer as a mission trip or service project. Remember when the hospitals asked us to stop hand-making masks and dropping them off at the start of COVID because they aren’t adequate medical PPE and weren’t safe/sterile/tested, and well-intentioned crafters bringing them in might be carrying the virus?
Looking to the helpers was Mr. Rogers’ way of redirecting attention from despair to hope, from overwhelm and panic into action and progress. But it's also just exactly what a wise, veteran minister or leader would say after seeing so much suffering to shepherd people through. Who's already doing the work? Who already has systems and strategies and coalitions and networks? Who is asking and what are they asking for? How can I help and serve, not how can I make myself feel like a hero? Look and ask and follow before leaping into "helping."
Fred Rogers was a Presbyterian, but in a moment of ecumenism he might have appreciated, I’ll add an Extremely Methodist Take for you.
You’ll often hear me say “Stop trying to ~manifest~ a miracle to save the world. You are the miracle!” I’m a social gospel Methodist always asking people to get up from begging for supernatural shows of power and divine interventions to BE the body of Christ in the world. It’s us! We’re the answer God has provided to the problem of pain! We are the divine intervention. But know that it is always with this context: root yourself in the Wesleyan quadrilateral first. “Tradition” aka, learn from the past and from those around you who’ve been doing it. Reason, aka, does it make sense in facts and data, is it actually what anyone needs or wants or is asking for? And the experience of the Spirit within you will remind you how far you’ve come and what’s been impossible made possible before you, and They will lead you forward, even when the odds seem against you and hope is scarce and the problem is too big for you or your group alone. We trust the Spirit of Love, higher than us, to work to bring us all together so each person or group’s contribution matters in a bigger picture we can’t see from here.
Look to the helpers in humility when you need help, in example when you need an education, and in leadership when you are ready to serve and join in to be a helper yourself, in any age, ability, skills, gift, contribution, or capacity you can bring to the work of collective liberation.