I am off to the city tomorrow, Thursday, and then to the outskirts of Chicago, to Harper College, where I will tell my audience about the pregnant woman who asked me in a letter if it was wrong to bring an innocent baby into a world as awful as this one. I told her that what made being alive almost worthwhile for me was all the saints I met almost anywhere, people who were behaving decently in an indecent society. I will tell the audience that I hope some among them will become saints for her child to meet.
Kurt Vonnegut to Robert Maslansky, October 16th, 1992.
Born in 1922, Vonnegut grew up in the Great Depression and served in World War II. He was captured by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge, and survived the firebombing of Dresden by taking shelter in an underground meat locker, which became the unspoken focus of his famous novel, The Slaughterhouse-Five.
Vonnegut had a front row seat to hard times, and I am struck by his comment about the awfulness of the world in the 1990s. Perhaps he always thought the world an awful place, destined to intercept the innocent. Or maybe the world felt more awful in the 1990s than in the 1930s or 1940s or any other decade. And yet, he met saints almost everywhere.
I, too, have met saints almost everywhere. The world might be more awful, or less awful, depending on when and where you live, or what you’re facing right now. But I love to see the saints, behaving decently. They don’t usually make headlines or go viral, and they would be uncomfortable with the attention. They just keep loving their neighbors and serving God.
You are such lovely people, readers of the Reformed Journal, and I am blessed to be a part of this community of saints.
Thank you for supporting this place where we talk about the world and what is good and what is awful and yet we encourage and support each other in the exhausting work of behaving decently in an indecent world.
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* But Wait…There’s More — three new books from Reformed Journal Press in 2025
- The Traveler’s Path by Doug Brouwer, early 2025
- Green Street in Black and White: A Chicago Story by Dave Larsen, late winter 2025
- Grounded by Christy Berghoef, spring 2025
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