Novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84
Kurt Vonnegut was my favorite author.
I had always thought that I would like to meet him someday and it's sad to know that that will never happen now. Before I became certain of my Christianity, I was a solid Humanist. Some of the hardest things about my evolution of faith was the slight rethinking of my Humanism. But all of that notwithstanding, I truly feel that I had to believe in Humans before I could consider them worthy of having a God that actually loves them.
As a race, we still lie, cheat, steal, and murder as much as we always have. I've often thought that a race like that didn't deserve to have a God or an afterlife. But reading Kurt Vonnegut's books helped me to believe that our race can be beautiful and noble. It had nothing to do with his characters or his stories as much as it had to do with Mr. Vonnegut. Knowing what he's gone through, he should have ended up with a heart filled with hate; but what shines clear through the words that he wrote is hope.
In his honor, I will try my best to ensure that the dark forbodings in his books never come to pass. I will work towards a world in which the epitaph "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt" is simple truth, not satire.