Monthly Archives: May 2007

Theological humor from a humanist

The recently deceased Kurt Vonnegut was a humanist, that is, he did not believe in God. On a number of occasions, Vonnegut riffed on his disbelief in witty and thought-provoking ways.

During one interview, Vonnegut told this story:

I am honorary president of the American Humanist Association… I succeeded Isaac Asimov as president, and we humanists try to behave as well as we can without any expectation of a reward or punishment in an after life. So since God is unknown to us, the highest abstraction to which we serve is our community. That’s as high as we can go, and we have some understanding of that. Now at a memorial service for Isaac Asimov a few years ago on the West Coast I spoke and I said, “Isaac is in heaven now,” to a crowd of humanists. It was quite awhile before order could be restored. Humanists were rolling in the aisles.

“Knowing What’s Nice” from In These Times, 6 November 2003. Link.

But in 1999, he told the story differently. This is from the book God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian:

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 resemble 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.

(I love the way he throws in that wry “God forbid.”) In 2006, he proposed another, different epitaph for himself:

No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.

If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:

THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC.

“Vonnegut’s Blues For America,” Scotland’s Sunday Herald, 5 February 2006. Link.

So of course the article isn’t really about his epitaph at all, it’s about how the rest of the world perceives the United States. A few paragraphs later, Vonnegut wrote: “Foreigners love us for our [blues]. And they don’t hate us for our purported liberty and justice for all. They hate us now for our arrogance.” The epitaph, in other words, isn’t for Vonnegut so much as for the increasingly theocratic United States.

But analyzing Vonnegut’s humor is like analyzing one of Louis Armstrong’s solos. If you gotta analyze it, you’re never gonna know.

In the bagel store

This morning, I burned the oatmeal. By the time I noticed it had burnt (the scorched smell seeping into my sleep-fogged brain while I dreamily ironed a shirt), it was too late to salvage any of it, and too late to start cooking more. I went to work without breakfast.

Fortunately, I had to run an errand at about 9:30. On the way back to the office, I stopped in at the new bagel place, which is in the same location as the old bagel place, but with new decor and a new owner.

“Hi,” said the young woman behind the counter, putting down a sandwich and smiling. “What can I get you?”

“Are those all the bagels you have left?” I said, pointing to the glass case under the counter.

“No, no,” she said, reaching down, and talking quickly. “I just haven’t had time to put anything out. It doesn’t look it now, but it was crazy in here just a few minutes ago. I just now was getting to my breakfast, and I’ve been here since five a.m. I’ve got spinach back here, and whole wheat and cinnamon raisin and… I guess that’s it, but I might have more out back.”

“Could I please have two whole wheat bagels with cream cheese?” I said.

Just then, a man walked up. He was about fifty-five, pencil-thin moustache, bit of a paunch. He looked like the tradesmen I used to see when I worked at the lumberyard.

“Hi Charlie,” said the woman behind the counter. “The usual?”

“Yeah,” he said, putting a travel mug down on the counter.

“You still sick?” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “I feel tired.”

“You got that bug that’s going around?” I said.

“That’s right,” he said. “Don’t get too close to me, I’m contagious!” He had a twinkle in his blue eyes.

“No, I already had it,” I said.

“I’ve gotten sick a lot this winter,” said Charlie. “Most winters, nothing. This winter, I’ve been sick three times,” holding up three fingers.

“Me too,” I said.

“Me too,” said the woman behind the counter, fixing Charlie’s coffee and slicing my bagels and spreading cream cheese and talking, all at a fast pace. “I’ve been sick a lot. I think it’s because it’s been so warm this winter, so you get sick more often. Last week, I had this feeling in my head, my head was pounding, right here behind the eyes. Someone said it’s allergies, but I knew it wasn’t allergies. But I couldn’t take time off to be sick, I just opened this business. So I had to come into work anyway.”

She gave Charlie his coffee, and he slowly stirred it. “Thanks,” he said.

“Plus, I’ve been eating like crazy, nervous eating, you know?” said the woman. “Starting this business has been really stressful, I eat all the time. I get nervous, I grab something to eat. I’ve put on twenty pounds since I opened up.”

“You gotta watch what you eat,” said Charlie. “Me, now I eat only organic vegetables, and I feel healthier. It helps you keep up your resistance. I get the organic milk, too.” (The thought flashed through my head: Boy, he’s not your stereotypical buyer of organic food.)

“Milk, bleah,” said the woman while she wrapped my bagels. “I don’t like milk. I just don’t drink it any more.”

“We eat organic, too,” I said to Charlie. “I don’t like milk either,” I said to the woman.

“Well, I might put some skim milk on my cereal in the morning,” said the woman, equivocating a little. “That’s a dollar ninety-four. Maybe skim milk on my cereal, but I don’t drink milk. I haven’t had a glass of milk to drink in years.”

I gave her two dollars, and put a dollar in the tip jar. Charlie told us how good organic milk tastes, nice and foamy like it just came out of the cow. I exchanged a glance with the woman behind the counter — he was a nice guy, but neither one of us was going to drink milk, organic or not.

Burning my oatmeal cost me three dollars and ninety-four cents, money I would have preferred not to spend. I guess the conversation was worth it, though.

Church marketing 101

“Change something significant about the appearance of your church at least once a month.” –Standard advice from church marketing experts.

First Unitarian in New Bedford sits right at a busy intersection, the corner of Union and County streets. While you’re waiting on Union Street for the traffic light to change, your car is right next to a huge building made out of granite, with a sign saying “First Unitarian Church.” Yet over and over again, newcomers tell us, “You know, I’ve driven by this building for years and never really noticed it.”

We need to follow advice straight out of Church Marketing 101: change something about the appearance of our site and/or building every month, something significant enough that people will notice our building. Otherwise, our building blends in and becomes just another unnoticed historic building in historic downtown New Bedford.

Problem is, we have very little in the budget for this kind of thing. Even so, we have already managed to plan a few things that won’t strain our budget:

  • April: We hung new signs on our fence. The new signs are easier to read, and they (finally) have our Web site URL prominently displayed. Due to budget constraints, we had to go with relatively inexpensive plastic signs which we plan to replace in another fiscal year.
  • May: We’re planting bright spring flowers under the new signs.
  • June: We planted Dutch iris bulbs that should start flowering in June.

We’re also going to take a look at our other sign that’s right at the intersection of County and Union — maybe we’ll wind up hanging smaller seasonal signs under it, or perhaps displaying a rainbow flag for a month. It’s going to take some creativity to come up with ten or twelve inexpensive ways to change the appearance of our site and building!

Spring watch

Suddenly, two days ago, I started seeing the cormorants again. They disappeared from New Bedford harbor late last fall, were gone all winter, and then on Sunday I saw this big black bird pop up from swimming underwater: a cormorant, who was just as surprised to see me as I was to see it, and who immediately began swimming away from me, fast.

The day before that, Saturday, I saw three or four Red-breasted Mergansers. They came to the harbor last fall, and have been here ever since. But since then, I haven’t seen a one. It’s almost as if the cormorants and the mergansers traded places. The wintering waterfowl have gradually been leaving the harbor since March. The last time I saw a Common Loon was early last week, swimming around Fish Island, resplendent in his summer plumage. I have to say, I’m sad that they’re gone for the year.

It’s mating season for Herring Gulls. The gulls who live on the roof of the building next to our apartment have been getting noisy at night, so noisy that they have awakened me a number of times. One night last week, a terrible screeching squabble woke me up, then I heard something hit the roof — thunk! — and slide down, scrabbling and scraping. Mating season must be a rough time when you’re a gull.

May 26, 2007 — I’ve added a video showing a number of Herring Gull nests that I’ve discovered on the rooftops of New Bedford, including the nest on our roof.