Just about everyone's heard of him, whether you've read anything of his or not - the latter of which is the category that I'm in. I've quoted him a couple of times in my sermons because I've seen a thing or two about him, or picked up a quote here or there, but I've never actually read one of his novels or articles.
Interestingly though, I've read quite a bit from another writer who was a great friend of Vonnegut's, who is also from Indianapolis: Dan Wakefield. Wakefield, also a novelist early on, is best known to me because of his spiritual memoir and his other books about his life and encouraging each of us to listen to and learn from our own lives.
I read in the paper the other day that Wakefield, now 90, and having moved back to Indy from New York and other places, has written a new biography of Vonnegut. I'll let you find out more about it for yourself if you're interested, but I mention it here because the article on the publication of this new book mentions two things that have long fascinated me: resilience and curiosity.
We're talking about resilience as you hopefully know as we begin the year, and Vonnegut apparently had it in spades. His life was full of disappointments. He opened the second-ever Saab dealership in the United States, and it closed within months. He bombed a writing test for Sports Illustrated, his dream job. He got turned down for a job teaching English at Cape Cod Community College. His first novel was rejected repeatedly. And yet, he adapted and overcome and was stunningly successful in the end.
And part of the reason for this was his, what Wakefield calls, "voracious creativity." He says about Vonnegut that, "Nothing is lost on you. You find a way." Through false starts and disappointments and tribulation and failure and bad experiences, there are new learnings and growth and development aplenty in the life of Kurt Vonnegut, according to Dan Wakefield.
Nothing is lost on you, you find a way - that, to me, is the essence of resilience and curiosity, and the essence of a good and successful life.
Grace and Hope to you,
Pastor Duane
