Remembrance Day often seems to pull the church in two directions. We wear red poppies and remember and honour the dead, our mouths filled with words of sacrifice. Or we wear white poppies, and we speak of peace and holy resistance, protesting the speed in which nations resort to war. Some of us wear both,…
In a recently published book on Dutch war monuments (Ruurd Kok, Denken Over Herdenken. Oorlogsmonumenten in Nederland), one chapter is devoted to some monuments that have been erected in the Netherlands not to honour but to mark the death of German soldiers on Dutch soil in the Second World War. Since the 1990s Germans have…
Jesus said to him [Thomas], “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” – John 14: 6a My parents told me this story. It is 1943 in Holland during the height of the Nazi occupation of that country. Everywhere Jews are rounded up for shipping to concentration camps. Able-bodied Dutch men are required…
“I grew up during the war years,” says Joe Schuringa. “In retrospect, from a teaching perspective, these were the best years of my life.” The war years taught Schuringa a crucial lesson that he hopes to share with other Christians across Canada: “Life goes on; the cows have to be milked.” Johan Frederick Schuringa is…
It’s a story that’s deeply familiar for those in Dutch Reformed circles, one that has endured the test of time for many decades. First published as a book in 1971 and then adapted into a film in 1975, The Hiding Place is being released this week as a brand new movie. It’s the story of…
In this fictional, historically-based graphic novel for juvenile readers, author R. J. Palacio fleshes out the background of characters she first introduced in her previous works, Wonder and Auggie & Me, especially that of Julian and his ancestors. Julian is assigned a project to write an essay about someone he knows for his humanities class. He facetimes with…
At times I’ve wondered why I’ve kept all of my correspondence my entire life. I have saved letters that I received way back in the 1940’s. Every time I move, I take the shoebox with letters along. But now I know why. There are two benefits that made it worth saving these letters. One I’ve…
On July 26, 1942, a young Nazi nurse administered a lethal injection to a patient in the Dachau hospital. The patient was a Dutch clergyman named Titus Brandsma; he passed out of this life within 10 minutes. That moment doubtless seemed of little consequence. The clergyman had been in poor health and unrepentant of his…
“As far as Papa knew, we canned a dozen jars of asparagus. He carefully added to his ledger and carried the preserves to the cellar. What was the harm of setting aside the thirteenth jar in the back of my wardrobe, behind the bolts of fabric leftover from Mama? I didn’t know what compelled me…
In 1918 pandemic followed war. In 2022 war has followed pandemic. Few of us saw it coming. Up to the last moment, I thought Russian President Vladimir Putin would continue to chip away at Ukraine’s largely Russian-speaking eastern territories, funding “separatists” and daring the rest of the world to do something about it. I personally…
Each morning for weeks, we wake to a minor civil war just outside the bedroom. A fierce food fight at the hummingbird feeder. It lasts all day. Six or more are at it. No tolerance for the other’s existence. No matter that food is in abundance; no matter that each can have a private spigot;…
During the 1930s, when Hitler destroyed Germany’s democratic institutions and turned his country into a Nazi superpower, he used the force of his government to spread Nazi lies to the rest of Europe and around the world. Goebbels, his propaganda wizard, made sure that all his words and images were tailored to exploit the differing…
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