I found myself thinking a lot about julie today. Someone on the bus reminded me of her. She had sweet blue eyes and long blonde hair in a pony tail, and seemed to be enjoying her life.
I know a lot of us may disagree on religion, the extent to which, and in exactly what to believe, how to resolve the juxtaposition of faith to scientific reason, and regarding the basic ideas of faith and worship. I am agnostic, a humansit actually, which basically means that I just believe in trying to be nice and decent, for no other reason than that it is clearly the right thing to do. What could be better? I think Julie was a humanist first.
One of my favorite authors was Kurt Vonnegut, who bumped his head and died last year or so. And I offer this little gem of an anecdote that illustrates his and the humanist's perspective on things:
I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association, having succeeded the late, great, spectacularly prolific writer and scientist, Dr. Isaac Asimov in that essentially functionless capacity. At an A.H.A. memorial service for my predecessor I said, "Isaac is up in Heaven now." That was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. It rolled them in the aisles. Mirth! Several minutes had to pass before something resembling solemnity could be restored.I made that joke, of course, before my first near-death experience — the accidental one.So when my own time comes to join the choir invisible or whatever, God forbid, I hope someone will say, "He's up in Heaven now." Who really knows? I could have dreamed all this.My epitaph in any case? "Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt." I will have gotten off so light, whatever the heck it is that was going on.
-KV, 'God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian'
I hope that Julie would agree that 'everything was beautiful, and that nothing hurt.' It didn't look that way to a lot of us, but if anyone could see it that way, it would be Julie.
Friday, July 25, 2008
Kurt Vonnegut to Julie
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1 comment:
Ahhh...two of my favorite authors!
Vonnegut used humor to tackle the basic questions of human existence: Why are we in this world? Is there a presiding figure to make sense of all this, a god who in the end, despite making people suffer, wishes them well?
Wrote DSmith in April of 2007 after Vonnegut's death.
Not a day goes by that I don't think of Jules myself. Julie was all about doing right, making it right and a peace keeper. No matter who you are, Julie didn't see you for your religion, your beliefs, your color, or any of what matters to a lot of others today. She didn't judge. She saw a person, a life. She respected life, the life of others and enjoyed sharing her happiness with others.
I too would believe that through it all and at the end, Jules would have agreed:'everything was beautiful, and that nothing hurt.'Even if we couldn't see it.
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