December 6: Blind Inn-Keeper's Stable, Cynical and Hardened, a Reminder

Billy Pilgrim was meanwhile traveling back to Dresden, too, but not in the present.  He was going back there in 1945, two days after the city was destroyed.  Now Billy and the rest were being marched into the ruins by their guards.  I was there.  O'Hare was there.  We had spent the past two nights in the blind inn-keeper's stable.  Authorities had found us there.  They told us what to do.  We were to borrow picks and shovels and crowbars and wheelbarrows from our neighbors.  We were to march with these implements to such and such a place in the ruins, ready to go to work.

This passage is a strange mixture of fiction and memoir.  Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut's time-traveling hero, is present.  Vonnegut is present, as well, along with his war buddy, O'Hare.  All three have spent a couple days in the stable of the blind inn-keeper (a little Christmas echo, there).  Now, the Germans are putting their prisoners to work in the ruins of Dresden.  This passage doesn't say it, but they are going to be searching for bodies in the wreckage of the city, something that Vonnegut did for quite some time before the end of the war.  So it goes.

First, allow me to apologize for my blog absence yesterday.  It was my daughter's 17th birthday.  Last night, I hosted a benefit at a local library.  Many of my university writing colleagues and I read some of our work and collected canned goods and nonperishable food items for local food pantries.  We had a crowd of nearly 100 people and collected, you guessed it, nearly 100 food items.  It was a wonderful night of good words, good laughter, and good works.

You know, it's really easy to become cynical and hardened right now in the United States.  There's a lot of terrible things happening on local, state, and national levels.  Accused pedophiles running for public office, with the endorsement of the President of the United States.  Nazis marching in the streets, with not one serious word of condemnation from the current President of the United States.  A new tax plan that will take away health care from children, cut funds to public schools, and provide millions of dollars in tax breaks to the incredibly wealthy, including (you guessed it!) the President of the United States.

Vonnegut and Billy and O'Hare face horrifying things in Dresden.  Vonnegut and O'Hare spent weeks searching and digging for human remains in the rubble.  I can't imagine doing what they did and not being forever changed.  I like to think that I have a strong faith in God, but, if I had to go through what Vonnegut did, I'm not sure that my faith would have carried me through.

It's easy to turn your back on God when confronted by God-less acts of violence and cruelty.  Since the current President of the United States took the oath of office in January, I have found my faith sorely tested.  It's really difficult to see rich white men and women, who claim to be Christians, taking away so much from the poor and needy.  I believe, if John the Baptist were around today, he'd be calling out a lot of viper broods.  There's just so much hypocrisy with government "servants."  It seems, to me, that the servants of the government are making the government serve them.

So, I needed last night to restore my faith in humanity a little bit.  To remind me that there are more good people than bad in the world.  The library was full of good people yesterday evening, doing a very good thing.

Saint Marty is thankful for that reminder.