EPISODES OF WWII: The Dutch cruiser HNLMS JAVA, lost in the Battle of the Java Sea. Photo Derek Simon [1919-2004] courtesy Graeme Andrews. (Photo credit: Kookaburra2011) I have moved into Peet’s coffee, whilst preparing my novel Shadows for professional editing. I believe ABDACOM* would applaud my take-over. My Dutch-American friends, Dutch-Canadian friends, U.S. friends would also all applaud my being here at Peet’s. My Japanese friends today, who include both Japanese-Americans interned in camps in the U.S. and veterans who served the U.S. in WWII (who never had anything to do with...

  Have you ever looked back on tragedy prior to your own or others’ liberation? Have you ever celebrated liberation while remembering the loss and pain of before? In The Netherlands (Holland) the end of World War II is celebrated every May 4th and 5th as the Remembrance and Liberation days. May 4, is Remembrance Day, a solemn day to remember the many civilians and soldiers who lost their lives. May 5 is Liberation Day, a day to celebrate the freedom which was so slow to come after six years of Nazi occupation. Parades re-enact liberation by Canadian, American and British troops. Looking...

If you could have any faith at all,  after what you had been through… then I could have faith too. words to my Dad How have you struggled with faith? Have you ever considered that such struggles could express a great deal of faith, rather than lack of faith?   The tragic concept of “The Banality of Evil” struck me as I read Christianity Today‘s interview with Agnieszka Holland, director of the amazing foreign film In Darkness.  In Darkness focuses on WWII, the Holocaust, and  Leopold Socha, a Polish sewer worker and petty thief who finds Jewish people hiding in the...

I squirm inside (in a healing way I hope) when I see how the intro to the first Excellent, Excellent, Excellent  post  appears on-line. It starts with these words…. “She is right,” said my teacher. “Her work and ability is excellent, excellent, excellent.”   Its as if I felt SECURE writing of INSECURITY  but embarrassed to have the first words readers see to be “She is right,” said my teacher. “Her work and ability is excellent, excellent, excellent.”   So I get to squirm into this awareness: It is okay to celebrate those times that people in God’s world affirm...

What happens  when I approach survivors to do research for my pending novel, Shadows, who are not used to talking? Survivors are probably not thinking to themselves excellent, excellent, excellent at such a time, I know. Yet somehow it all works out. I receive moments, both of us softening again. Softening that which had been hardened pain for so long. We start like barnacles on the bottom of a ship, seemingly impossible to scrape off, infecting every lake it goes to, risking barnacles on every ship, kayak or boat that enters the new lake. Yet, with caring faith-filled talk the barnacles start to come...

“Excellent, excellent, excellent” I scrawled on my second grade self-report, in Spanish Fork, Utah. Mama went to school for the whole report card and progress report. “She is right,” said my teacher. “Her work and ability is excellent, excellent, excellent.” By the time of this exchange, my excellent, excellent, excellent seven year old self  had already lost two beloved countries (the Netherlands and Iran), many family and friends. My encouraging second-grade teacher was at the fifth elementary school of my young life. Today this memory and report of my teacher’s words fill me with...