suspended between. . . reflecting on kurt vonnegut and my faith

"Kilgore Trout took a leak in the men's room of the New York City movie house. . . . There was a message on the tiles by the roller towel.  This was it:  What is the purpose of life? . . .  he would have written, if he had found anything to write with:

To be

the eyes

and ears

and conscience 

of the Creator of the Universe

you fool."                          - Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

Spoiler warning.

Vonnegut's writing always is equally self-deprecating and critical of the world at large.  I think this passage represents both his criticism of God (which is found in all of his books), as well as a criticism of himself.  He writes himself into this story, as the "Creator of the [literary] Universe".  He seems to point to the fact that he experiences the world through his fictional characters, just as he often feels that God himself must be deaf, blind, and in some sense antisocial.  Still he is often quoted for having said that the only proof of God he needed was music.

I find it quite easy to relate to his attitude.  No matter how often religious people assert that we should feel the responsibility of evil on our own shoulders, I can't help but fall back on theodicy:  I don't know that I can ever escape the feeling that God has a lot to answer for.  Yet, in all that, I also find him/her intricately woven into the fabric of all the things I would consider beautiful; music included.

My girlfriend who has never been a Christian keeps asking me if I actually consider myself to be so.  I never really know what to say.  I think somewhere inside me, there is a part of my psyche that does not want to let go of that part of my identity.  There's also a part which is thoroughly disgusted by 99% of what is called "Christian" in our world, and so I want to leave it behind and not look back.  There's also realist in me that looks at what "following Jesus" would mean in the most pragmatic of terms, and he questions whether I, or anyone I know have ever really . . . actually "followed" this homeless preacher who lived in such a radical way as to be killed by authorities a few months after going public.  We won't be killed for our lifestyles and beliefs.  We wouldn't be killed for our lifestyles or beliefs.  Hell, we wouldn't even consent to live without shelter for our lifestyles and beliefs.

When I listen to Jesus talk about God, part of me is impressed, and most of me dismisses him the same as any other overzealous adherent I might hear.  

"That's great for him . . . "  I say

Which is really just a way of saying, "I don't want to impinge my beliefs on yours, but I think you're an idiot."

Truthfully, I don't think it's possible for any one human to know "God" any better than any other human.  I think we all just focus on different facts, different histories, different myths, different lies . . . and then we indoctrinate the conclusions we draw from the picture we've chosen to see.  I would be hard pressed to say I'm not an agnostic.  

As I've said before, the value I take from Christianity is that I feel that at its core, and particularly at its best, it is a movement that serves as a radical humanism.  Beyond what often passes for humanistic tendencies in secular circles, Christianity has always birthed a small portion of adherents who fought for a radical sort of egalitarianism.  One which restored the dignity of those who slipped through cracks of popular humanist tendencies.  Vonnegut once said, ". . if Jesus hadn't delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn't want to be a human being.  I'd just as soon be a rattlesnake."   He considers Jesus to be the greatest inspiration to all humanists.

Vonneguts pessimism, as well as his humanism, in my opinion, are the outgrowth of his experience in World War II.  He was a prisoner of war in Dresden, up through the days where our government firebombed the city mercilessly.  It was a city without a military presence.  We did it for revenge, and because military leaders are typically sadists.  Vonnegut was one of a handful of prisoners who survived.  The German guards who survived forced him and his compatriots to attempt in vain to bury the tens of thousands of bodies who had died from bombs, but whose remains had not been consumed by the ensuing fires.  The city which had been a center for the German Arts looked like this afterwards:

I also assume this experience is responsible for his stance as a radical pacifist, and an outspoken critic of any pretense of a "just war".  

I wonder often if Christians, or those of us who are somewhere in between, should try first to be good humanists, before they/we ever assume to be "followers" of Jesus.  Maybe then we could have some sort of grasp on how extreme Jesus actually was.  Maybe then we could understand why he was killed after only a few weeks of speaking publicly.  Maybe then we wouldn't act as though there was ever a justified reason for the country we inhabit to firebomb anyplace,  ever.

I guess lately the realist in me is controlling the floor, so to speak.  I hesitate to identify myself as a Christian; not out of shame, but honesty.  If Gandhi is correct, and the poor are the litmus test for who qualifies as such, I highly doubt I will be counted among the righteous.  I don't particularly like sleeping outside, and I hope to never need preach to get a meal.  I also don't expect the Kingdom of God to come within the week.  And really I don't think lions will ever lay down with lambs, or that the world we live in will see true equality on a global scale.  So, following Jesus, in the literalist sense, is the last thing that I am actually doing with my life.

But, apart from literalism, there is a degree to which my life is still inspired by Jesus.  I am intrigued that a world could exist where inequalities are not respected.  Where compassion is set out towards even if it is imperfect.  etc. etc.

I think that means I'm either a Unitarian or a Christian Agnostic.  I don't really know.

Vonnegut reminds me of the psalmists a lot of the time . . . just more sardonic.  The psalms often indict God for the great tragedies of their day.  Later on, extra material was added to the end of such psalms to make them more faith-friendly.   

I wish it weren't so necessary to polarize our society into factions of belief and disbelief (which I find demand equal amounts of faith).  I resent the greed of both sides to win support for their extremes.  I, like many, remain suspended in the middle, wishing naivete and wisdom weren't mutually exclusive.