Dear American Humanist Association Member,

Kurt Vonnegut, who died just yesterday in New York, was the 1992 Humanist of the Year and honorary president of the American Humanist Association. "I am a humanist," he wrote in a letter to AHA members, "which means, in part, that I have tried to behave decently without expectations of rewards or punishments after I am dead."

By those who knew him, Kurt will be remembered for his direct personal approach; he will also be remembered for his acerbic wit and humor and his unflagging support for humanist concerns.

Since I arrived at the office early this morning and learned of Vonnegut's death, I've been in contact with Humanists across the country who share our sadness at this news. As the day has progressed, the AHA has received numerous memorial donations in honor of Kurt and his dedication to Humanism.

To make this easier for people I'm sending this message to AHA members who may like to honor him in this way. Your generous donation will be used to support the cause that he championed.

To make a memorial contribution in Kurt Vonnegut's name, please visit the secure webpage we've set aside https://www.americanhumanist.org/secure/kurtcontribute.php. There will also be an opportunity on the contribution pages to leave a personal message honoring him. We'll compile those comments in the coming days and create a special online memorial page.

Sincerely,

Kurt Vonnegut's death on April 11 deprives the world of the 20th century's Mark Twain. As Kurt himself would have said, "So it goes".

Fortunately, Kurt regarded his life's work as more or less finished, so he leaves us with a legacy of his distilled wisdom. As in his penultimate book, "God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian": "About belief or lack of belief in an afterlife: Some of you may know that I am neither Christian nor Jewish nor Buddhist, nor a conventionally religious person of any sort. I am a humanist, which means, in part, that I have tried to live decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after I'm dead".

He added: "My epitaph in any case? 'Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt.' ... Humanists are content to serve as well as they can, the only abstraction with which they have any familiarity: their communities."

Kurt's humanism was of the positive kind, in contrast with the negative sort radiating from some humanists today who would rather fight over abstractions than work with others to save our only planet and our tenuously held liberties.

Kurt was one of the very few authors virtually all of whose writings are still in print and readily accessible. Two of his novels were made into films, "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Mother Night". The first did very well at the box office, while the second, starring Nick Nolte, which I regard as the better of the two, did poorly in theaters.

Although I met Kurt only a few times, I always felt a special connection to him, and not just because we were fellow humanists. We grew up in the same town and attended high schools less than two miles apart on 16th Street in Indianapolis. When I was in high school I played tuba in the renowned Indianapolis Newsboys Band, which rehearsed in the loft of the old Vonnegut Hardware Company under the direction of an old man named Vandewarker who had played in John Philip Sousa's band. And my wife and I were married in the Unitarian chapel designed by Kurt's father.

Let me close with the last verse of Kurt's "Cosmos Cantata" (music by Seymour Barab, available on CD).

"Let not eternal light disturb our sleep, O Cosmos, for Thou art merciful. Deliver me, O Cosmos, from everlasting wakefulness. On that dread day when the heavens and earth shall quake, when we shall dissolve the world into glowing ashes in the name of gods unknowable, I am seized with trembling and I am afraid until that day of reckoning shall arrive. Hence I pray, Deliver me, O Cosmos, from everlasting wakefulness on that day of wrath, calamity and misery. Rest grant us, O Cosmos, and let not light perpetual disturb our sleep."

Edd Doerr, President
Americans for Religious Liberty
Box 6656
Silver Spring, MD 20916
301-260-2988
arlinc@verizon.net