Today was a wondrous peek at the coming fall, cornflower blue sky, cloudless and clear, a breeze so nice and cool I almost came in the house for a sweater. It was 69 degrees! The summer is ending and Mother Nature is mixing colors on her palette to paint the leaves in captivating colors of yellow and red and orange. She’ll sneak a few purple paint brush strokes on some of the oaks. Fall is such a beautiful season. I love watching the sun shade the landscape golden as it begins to dress in its cardigans of many colors.

I crossed the 100 mile marker on my stationary bike last night. Rode eight miles today. I’ve had it a month. I’m riding six miles a day now, three in the morning and three at night, hoping I can get up to ten miles a day soon. If I could lug that thing out to the porch, I’d ride all day watching my songbirds. Been bribing myself with my favorite western movies, watching them on my iPad hanging off the little control panel. My youngest grandson, sweet boy, put his hand out to help me up the curb at the ballgame Friday night and I said, “Watch,” and stepped up by myself. “Impressive,” he says. So guess it’s helping me. I pretend it’s a unicycle and ride without holding on. Sometimes I can even feel the library books in my arms and the wind in my face as I speed along in my childhood memories riding home from the city library.

As I looked out across yard today I thought, it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. Then I thought, I stole that line from Fred Rogers. I just read the speech he made when he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 24th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards Ceremony. I love his words and want to put some of them in my words tonight. He had such a simplistic way of looking at life with his kindness and spirituality. He was called “America’s favorite neighbor.”

“The connections we make in the course of a life — maybe that’s what heaven is.” — Fred Rogers

He spoke softly and slowly at the awards ceremony and said, “Oh, it’s a beautiful night in this neighborhood. So many people have helped me to come to this night. Some of you are here. Some are far away. Some are even in heaven. All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take along with me 10 seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are — those who have cared about you and wanted what was best for you in life? Ten seconds of silence. I’ll watch the time. Whomever you’ve been thinking about — how pleased they must be to know the difference you feel they’ve made…”

Ten seconds to thank those who have influenced our lives. I just wonder if anyone thought to thank God. Mr. Rogers urged children to love themselves and their neighbors. God asks the same of us. When asked which commandment was the most important, Jesus is quoted as saying, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” Matthew 22:37-39.

It’s so easy to love God but sometimes hard to accept his answers to our prayers. When we love God we love our neighbors, too, and we spread God’s hope and share his light through our actions and deeds. So many people come and go in our lives and leave a part of themselves with us. Words are such powerful things. We need to be as mindful of what we say, as how we say it, specially to our children. Proverbs 16:24 reads, “Kind words are like honey — sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.” Our words can change lives or cut them short.

We all can find ten seconds in our prayers to be thankful for the people who have shaped our lives, touched our hearts, and molded us into who we are. And don’t forget to be thankful to God for all his love and blessings. Without God we have no breath of life.

“Imagine what our real neighborhoods would be like if each of us offered, as a matter of course, just one kind word to another person.” — Fred Rogers