[Sun Moon Star, Kurt Vonneguts only childrens book (which is
probably a good thing for the sake of all malleable minds), is a
Christmas book because of the story he chose to tell. ]
[[link removed]]

ST. FRANCIS, KURT VONNEGUT AND THE RADICAL ABSURDITY OF THE
INCARNATION  
[[link removed]]


 

Stephen Copeland
December 22, 2023
National Catholic Reporter
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Sun Moon Star, Kurt Vonnegut's only children's book (which is
probably a good thing for the sake of all malleable minds), is a
Christmas book because of the story he chose to tell. _

The cover of Sun, Moon, Star by Kurt Vonnegut and Ivan Chermayeff,

 

My 19-month-old pointed toward his shelf of Christmas books, "Boke?"
He wanted to pick another book for me to read to him before bed, which
I assumed would be about another snowman, his new obsession. I
sometimes try to talk him out of the snowman books, as if I'm the one
who is supposed to be entertained. 

But this time he pointed to _my_ favorite children's book, _Sun
Moon Star [[link removed]]_,
written by one of my favorite authors, the late, great satirist Kurt
Vonnegut.

Whereas most illustrators design their work after the author has
written their story, this book had the opposite creative process.
Renowned graphic designer Ivan Chermayeff first made the
illustrations, then had Vonnegut write a story to fit the artwork, as
if the author of _Slaughterhouse-Five_ (or, my personal
favorite, _Breakfast of Champions_) needed an outlet to be any
weirder. 

In _Sun Moon Star_, Kurt Vonnegut tells the Christmas story through
the undeveloped eyes of the newborn baby Jesus, using illustrations by
Ivan Chermayeff. (Courtesy of Seven Stories Press)

_Sun Moon Star_, Vonnegut's only children's book (which is probably a
good thing for the sake of all malleable minds), is a Christmas book
because of the story he chose to tell. 

Flip through the illustrations, and it feels as if Chermayeff was
trying to purposefully prevent Vonnegut from being able to put
anything coherent together. It begins with an intricate sketch
detailing the anatomy of an eyeball, then features more than 20 pages
of simple, jagged shapes — suns, moons, stars — as well as pages
that are completely one color. The shapes vary in size throughout the
book, sometimes multiply and other times intersect with one another. 

I think my son made it to the eyeball drawing before he started
screaming for the snowman.

In _Sun Moon Star_, Vonnegut brilliantly tells the Christmas story
through the undeveloped eyes of the newborn baby Jesus, this "Creator
of the Universe" who "had never had needs for eyes before" since "it
had known all things and been all things." 

For a blank green page, Vonnegut wrote, "Its fourth dream was simply
green. It had never seen green before." 

He described a rounded sun as Mary's shoulder and a star perched atop
a crescent moon as Joseph in the doorway with a lantern. 

For a page that featured the three shapes twisted together, Vonnegut
wrote, "The Creator now saw a sun, a moon and a star come together in
an impossible cosmic tangle. What could be the explanation? The baby's
eyes had crossed."

Some may think the book borders on sacrilege, though the book opens
with those celebrated words from Isaiah 7:14
[[link removed]] about Emmanuel meaning "God
with us." Written by a freethinking humanist who once described
himself as a "Christ-loving atheist," Vonnegut was unafraid to
critique religion in his work. 

I, however, not only think the book is hilarious but also find it
theologically beautiful. Vonnegut, a literary expert in his depiction
of the absurdity of the human condition, now elevates the radical
absurdity of Christ's human condition through the Incarnation: the
Creator of the Universe reduced to a helpless infant, unable to
decipher his surroundings, seeing colors and vague shapes and, yes,
probably crossing his eyes.

Was this not a semblance of what St. Francis of Assisi was also doing
when he set up a live Nativity 800 years ago in the little town of
Greccio? (I doubt anyone has ever bridged Vonnegut to Francis before,
but there is a first time for everything.) 

At a time when Jesus was often depicted as a conquering, victorious
king on a throne, a God-view used to justify crusades and other
conversion-focused missions, Francis helped people refocus on the
humanity and humility of Christ. In the mystery of the Incarnation,
Francis saw the heart of God.

I was recently given the opportunity to visit Italy on a Franciscan
pilgrimage. At Greccio, our guides helped my imagination expand as
they explained the shocking qualities of Francis' live Nativity.
Francis sought to make the Nativity reenactment as human and real as
possible: in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold, with not
only real people but also real animals who likely smelled and perhaps
even used the bathroom there in that tiny cave. 

The grotto at the Sanctuary of Greccio, Italy, where St. Francis of
Assisi set up a live Nativity scene in 1223 (Wikimedia
Commons/MonDoMD)

The people of Greccio, who adored Francis and his brothers, would have
found this immersive experience to be unique, maybe beautiful, but it
was far from comfortable or pleasant. Maybe this was Francis' point.
Sometimes in our romanticization of the Christmas story, we forget its
absurdity.

Francis, of course, was no stranger to the realm of the absurd. This
was a man who denounced his father by stripping naked before the
bishop; who would voyage barefoot to far-off places like Rome and
Greccio and La Verna; who once journeyed "behind enemy lines" in the
middle of the Fifth Crusade with hopes of meeting the sultan,
commander of the Muslim army (they did meet, spent several days
together and became friends).

Legend has it that one Christmas Eve, as banquets took place around
Assisi and his brothers became conscious of their own hunger and
poverty, Francis took a large piece of meat from the table where his
brothers sat and rubbed it against the wall saying, "Even the walls
must eat meat in celebration!"

To dare see through God's eyes means something entirely different at
Christmas.

These are the actions of a saint with a flare for the theatrical —
actions that today could be interpreted as those of a brilliant
madman, perhaps another overlapping trait with Vonnegut. Sometimes it
takes absurd people to communicate absurd truths. 

On the back wall of the grotto in Greccio is now a fresco from the
early 15th century, attributed to an artist called Narni. The right
side of the fresco might be shocking to our modern eyes, as Mary holds
her bare breast and presses it into the mouth of the suckling
Godchild. It can feel disrupting, almost provocative, as if we want to
shield our eyes from this nakedly human moment between the Virgin and
the Savior. 

But maybe this was the artist's point, forcing the viewer to confront
the radical absurdity of the Incarnation: the God of the universe
entirely dependent upon Mary's breast milk to live.

Any Christian spirituality that does not cultivate human dignity is
not anchored in the Incarnation. God not only comes to our world
through a human being, but becomes a vulnerable infant dependent upon
other humans for survival. Narni's fresco succeeds in communicating
the messy physicality of the Incarnation, mirroring the themes Francis
elevated that cold night in 1223.

Here on the 800-year anniversary of Francis' live Nativity at Greccio,
we're invited to reflect upon the Christmas story in a different way,
in an absurd way, which is to say contemplating the revolutionary
mystery of God being big enough to become that small.

Yes, there was a magic, a mystical thinness, to the Christmas story,
but Jesus would have known none of it. In that stable Jesus would have
breastfed and peed and pooped and slept and probably screamed and
cried from the discomforts of his straw bed. 

To the infant, the shepherds, wise men, animals and that divinely
chosen couple would have been convoluted shapes and colors. Or as
Vonnegut concludes on the opening page of Sun Moon Star, "The Creator
had only to exist. That was enough. But now, as a human infant, It was
also going to see — and to do so imperfectly, through two human
eyes, each a rubbery little camera."

To dare see through God's eyes means something entirely different at
Christmas.

* Kurt Vonnegut
[[link removed]]
* Christmas
[[link removed]]
* children's book
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]

Manage subscription
[[link removed]]

Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]