After undergoing two years of unbelievable savagery at the hands of the Japanese, Louie and his fellow POW's were finally liberated some 5 days after the Emperor of Japan "ushered in peace," as the Japanese propagandists claimed, or surrendered, as the world understood. They had been slated to be slaughtered before being liberated by allied forces, but the totality of defeat by the dropping of two atom bombs made officials think again - they knew they would be judged immediately for their actions, and at the last hour, most POW's were permitted to live.
And so we would think the happy ending has arrived. Reading the book, one wonders how Louie and his fellows had the courage and strength to continue, and personally, it left me in extreme doubt as to my own powers to live under the conditions they shared, but the book follows Louie home, where we find he was human after all. As with virtually all the allies imprisoned by the Japanese, he suffered from debilitating post-traumatic stress. In his case, he had regular nightmares, especially of one particularly cruel sergeant, where he developed a fantasy of killing him slowly with his bare hands. He also suffered complete flashbacks, where he was actually their in camp, the people, the smells, the pain, the suffering, all as real as real could be. Although he found a woman that he loved to be his wife, and although she soon gave birth to their child, he quickly fell into alcoholism, with all the attendant odd and abusive behavior. Within a few years of his marriage, his wife was ready for divorce. Towards what was to be the end, they lived together in a small apartment near LA, waiting for the movement of the divorce papers, the woman fed up, the man (Louie) living only for one thing: to go back to Japan and seek revenge on the un-apprehended official war criminal that the sergeant had become. And then came the redemption.
Louie's life had always been writ large, and in certain ways (but certainly not all ways) I found myself envying him. He was an Olympic star and had survived the absolute worst possible conditions. His life had always been larger than ours, a destined and chosen man, and his redemption continued to prove it as we again pick up the story: Their lives unraveling, his wife found her way to a revival meeting being given by an unknown young preacher. After one session, she returned and told Louie she was no longer going to divorce him - but he had to go to the revival. It took several days of persuasion, but finally he went, to see the startling performance of the little-known preacher, young Billy Graham. Yes, bigger than life. Still, Louie remained largely unmoved by the first few visits, and openly antagonistic to the preacher's admonition at the end of each session to "lower your eyes and bow to pray." Louie would not give in. On the third time, as the preacher ended with the same request, Louie again began to stalk out of the tent, until he remembered something. Graham that day had preached the Gospel of the adulterous woman, where he enigmatically scrawls doodles in the the sand while saying to the men, "you who have not sinned cast the first stone." The men wander away in shame and the woman is told to "go and sin no more," but Graham went further: what was Jesus writing or pretending to write in the sand? It was, Graham said, the record of all our lives, for God knows each hair on our head. Similarly, He knows each thought and feeling and deed, and all will become our book on Judgement Day, written by ourselves, ourselves our only and strongest accuser.
And there was Louie, eaten by fear and revenge, still controlled by the Monster of the Camp, now only in his imagination. What sort of book was HE writing of himself? And hadn't he promised to dedicate his life to God if he were saved from his perils? (he had). It was then that he turned around, gave himself to God, and miraculously, his dreams and flashbacks ended. He stopped drinking on the very day. As of the printing of the book in 2010, he was still alive at 93, giving lecture tours on his experiences and enjoying almost unprecedented health.
As everything in Louie's life was large, so are the lessons of his life. The author did not write the book as a Christian story of redemption, but as a fascinating life story that happened to end in redemption. Certain aspects are compelling and inevitable, but I will only mention one here today: why is it that Louie was so hostile to the revival?
Most of us would not go to such a thing because we think they are hokey and boring, and I believe that is why many people don't attend religious services of any kind today - boredom. I have confessed to periods of boredom in church myself, and this has led me to think that perhaps certain services can be altered for the modern hyper-mind. Beyond that, though, is another factor that even plays subtly in those who are primarily bored - pride, a refusal to admit that one is fallible and a refusal to give one's life to a higher power. This was obviously Louie's problem. It took extreme suffering and guilt to lay his life down for this other power, and in that, the tension was lifted. He was no longer insufficient, controlled by the sadistic humiliation and dehumanization of his captors. He was human again, imperfect as we all are, and dependent as we all are (whether we admit it or not) on a life force that we do not understand. His life was in God's hands now, and he had dedicated himself to God. He was free of his self-made hell.
Whether or not we think this is corny, it worked for Louie. But what of our pride? For most of us, we are able to humble ourselves even if we don't appreciate it, and most of us will admit to our spiritual imperfections. We belong to the bored but only limply mutinous masses. But there are others who are stridently opposed to spirituality and religion of any kind, just as Louie was, and I do believe it is for the same reasons: one, a pride that keeps these people from admitting their relative helplessness in the infinity of being; and two, the existence of a mountain of their own guilt and worthlessness.
Who doesn't shrink in horror before the idea that we will stand naked before a spiritual judgement, each thought and action played for all to see? Are you kidding me? Personally, there is hardly a day that goes by when some negative impulse doesn't create some nasty image or idea in my mind. As for actions, those negatives of today are mostly from an egoistic insensitivity, but there were years in youth I would not want to relive, drugs and sex and rock and roll and all. And yet, all are the truths of my life and truth must be admitted to before progress can be made.
Such the arch-opponents of the sacred will never admit, and I think this is so not only from pride, but from fear. They, perhaps we, may be proud of pride, but never of fear. We will fight off such suggestions with tooth and nail. We will, if need be, insist that humans are soul-less animals, only different from other species in the development of our brain ( I would argue that animals have souls as well, but that is a different tact). It would be my bet that Louie, a proud and courageous man, would hope that his life would help others to confront and admit to their fears and weaknesses, and understand that we are not alone in our struggles on earth; that a God, or infinite power or great universal force (take your pick) is there in our lives and has been there all along to help us through - if we have the courage to admit our weaknesses and fears, enough to happily admit our spiritual dependence. FK