Lenses for Life

When the proof came I could not put it down. I was holding in my hands the result of an intensive labor of love. Twenty years of labor to be exact. Well, there was a several years hiatus in there somewhere. The labor slowed way down when I began ordained ministry full time in 1996 and then it came to a painful screeching halt when Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimers disease in 1999. We lost him in 2006. But the labor began again in earnest in the spring of 2009 when I began painting his story and preparing to travel to the places he was held prisoner in the Philippine Islands and Japan during WWII, which I did in February through April 2010. From fall 2009 until Spring 2011 almost every spare minute was taken up in writing and rewriting the story. It consumed me.

It started out as an attempt to record my father’s WWII POW story for the sake of our family. I did not want it to be forgotten. It ended up a very personal journey. As I studied, and read, and traveled, and reflected, it became increasingly apparent just how much my father’s experience had shaped me. So much of who I am and what I do echoes my father’s life.

I was not much interested in the kitchen or cooking. I was fascinated with tools and spent most of my time in the garage or outside with my father. I knew what a crescent wrench was long before I knew what a spatula was. I crawled up on the fender of the car and watched my father fix engines. I loved to be with him and I loved to be up high so I was driving nails on the roof long before I ever baked my first cake. To this day I do not know if my attraction was primarily to be with my dad wherever he was or if it was to mechanical and outdoor tasks. I just know that I was with him a lot and I learned so many practical skills. What I did not realize until much later in life was that I also acquired my worldview from him. I saw the world through the lenses my father wore—not physical lenses, but the lenses of his experience as a young man captured and made a prisoner of war just after his 21^st birthday. He suffered and survived three and a half years of deprivation and unspeakable brutality.

Yet, the lenses my father gave me allowed me to see a world filled with possibilities rather than a world filled with obstacles. Somehow, though poor, and small, and average in almost every way, my father helped me see a world where I could do anything I set my heart and mind to do. The lenses my father gave me allowed me to smile through life’s ups and downs. He saw the good in everything and everyone. My father helped me to see faith in God as the best lense of all to see the world and others clearly. My worldview was shaped by a man who had survived unspeakable brutality and had escaped death over and over again as a result of these lenses. I learned to see the world and myself through them and as a result am an optimistic, determined (stubborn?), hopeful, God-dependant person.

The book about my father’s story and how it shaped me is available on Amazon (link below) in black and white ($14.99) and a color edition ($30.00). It is a very personal story, but it is also a national story. Men like my father who survived and came home from WWII continued to sacrifice and serve in order to build the life and nation that subsequent generations often take for granted. When my copy of the final book arrives I think I will not be able to put it down. I think I will sleep with it. It is a labor of love. I hope all who read it will think about those who have positively shaped their own lives—given them lenses with which to see the world and themselves as filled with possibilities, full of goodness, and because of faith, full of hope.

When I blogged about my personal journey discovering how much my father’s experienced shaped me, friends who read it encouraged me to write it for a wider audience. I have. If you or someone you know are part of that wider audience who might benefit from a read you can order it from Amazon.

JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS, FORGED BY WAR: A DAUGHTER SHAPED BY A WWII POW STORY.

http://www.amazon.com/Forged-War-Daughter-Shaped-Story/dp/146799149X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322626305&sr=1-1

The Power of Story

Some 300,000 Allied and American soldiers were captured and imprisoned by the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II. One in three perished. There were a lot more POW’s in the European theatre but only one in thirteen perished there. These are just historical facts. Interesting but no one except history buffs get too excited about the statistics.

My father was one of the 300,000 captured in the Pacific, and he was one of the 200,000 that survived. He was severely malnourished and diseased but he survived. The doctors said he would never be able to have children because of the damage done by those three and a half years. The doctors were wrong. I am one of his five children. And not only did my father survive and have children, he thrived and raised a family that now numbers forty-one, with more on the way. I am passionate about telling his story.

My father survived the Bataan Death March, two POW camps and a prison infirmary in the Philippines, a hell ship transport, and forced labor in a copper mine in northern Japan. His three-and-a-half-year ordeal as a prisoner of war is a story of the power and grace of God combined with the determination and hope of a young man. All of a sudden people are very interested in and emotionally moved by this POW story. Why? Because it is a personal story and not just a historical fact. Personal stories are powerful. When told with passion and detail they engage people in quite remarkable ways.

First, personal stories can introduce the listener to a real person. When told well, the audience feels like they come to know the person. Second, personal stories can cause the listener to remember stories of their own. Emotional connection with another person’s story brings to mind experiences of their own and re-engagement with their past. Third, personal stories can inspire listeners to engage more fully in the present. When people experience deep emotion related to real-life experiences of others, they are inspired to experience life more deeply in the present.

This past week I have been telling my father’s POW story, and the response is quite remarkable. People of all ages and stages of life experience my father as a person and express significant appreciation for who he was. People of all ages and stages also open up and begin telling their own stories that are equally engaging. Many of the stories I have been told in the last week have never been told before. Hearing my father’s story encouraged them to tell theirs. And people of all ages and stages expressed a desire to engage more fully in the present—appreciating family and friends, and making the most of whatever life they have to live.

I love telling my father’s story. I love it because it reconnects me to him even though he died five years ago. But I also love telling my father’s story because of the way it impacts those who hear it. The multiplication potential is incalculable. I especially love that my father’s story encourages others to tell their stories too. Personal stories are powerful. The more people telling them, the more life will be enriched for all who tell and all who hear.

Facing Death in a Rice Paddy

Five years ago today, my father, Kenneth Earl Davis, died at the age of 86. That he died is no surprise. The surprise is that he lived to this ripe old age. It is a testament to the power and glory of God. My father was a WWII POW and a year and a half after he enlisted in the army he found himself facing death and his life flashing before his eyes.

Just turned twenty-one, Ken found himself face down in a hard, dry rice paddy in the Philippine Islands. He figured it was his time. He would be executed like the other American soldiers he saw dragged to this spot the day before—shot and bayoneted, and stripped of all earthly possessions. Though he had not slept or eaten for days, he could not sleep, and the hunger and pain he felt was overwhelmed by the reality that he believed his life was coming to an end.

Ken had seen this in movies. A person caught in death’s trap would suddenly see their life flash before their eyes. In the movies it was a flashback played out by the characters of the film. For Ken there were no actors, no characters. This was real life. Less than two years after he enlisted in the Army and looked at a map and chose the Philippine Islands as a place to serve, he found himself facing death in a rice paddy on the Bataan peninsula. And his life began to flash before his eyes.

It was as if a screen was suspended in his mind and his memory began playing back all the scenes. He saw his mom and dad and his 11 brothers and sisters. He saw his childhood antics and his rebellious escapades. He saw his home and the church he attended as a child and the chapel he attended while at the CCC Camp. And he remembered the good news of the gospel he learned from as far back as he could remember, that Jesus died for his sins and that he, Ken, would have a place in heaven because of God’s grace and mercy demonstrated on the cross no matter what he had done. It was April 12, 1942. It was about that time of the year—Easter. The screen went blank but Ken’s mind did not. He described an overwhelming sense of peace that came over him. He knew he was about to die, but he reached deep down into the faith he embraced as a child and took hold of it again. And he prayed. He thanked God for this faith given to him. He thanked God for his family. And he prayed that if somehow he survived this rice paddy death hole he would live his life differently. He would dedicate himself to following the one who gave his life for him—Jesus Christ.

Ken did survive that rice paddy. He did not know exactly why, but he did. The Japanese soldiers returned but they did not kill him. They kicked him and told him to get up and directed him toward a column of American and Filipino troops forming down the road. Ken had survived the death paddy, but now, just two weeks past his 21st birthday, he was about to join the infamous Bataan Death March. He would survive this, too. And the death rail cars, and the death camps, and a death ship (hellship), and another death camp. For three and one half years Ken would survive unspeakable torture and brutality. And he would live another 60 years to make good on the promise to dedicate his life to following Christ.

Ken would do more than survive. He would thrive. Despite these four years of the most inhospitable treatment, Ken was the epitome of hospitality. Even though he suffered untold prejudice and evil, Ken would extend acceptance and kindness to all kinds of people. And even though these years were filled with darkness and despair, Ken would prove to be a man of optimism and hope. His life was a testament to the power of the grace and love of God.

[This story is an excerpt from a soon to be published book about Ken’s WWII POW story and how it shaped his life and the life of his children, Forged by War: A Daughter’s Story of Her WWII POW Father and How It Shaped Her, is due to be published summer 2011.]