Posted on Saturday, February 03, 2007 - 6:33 am:

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Tonight, actually, I wanted to come home and do some work this topic, but I went past the movie theater after work and noticed that Clint Eastwood's film "Letters From Iwo Jima" is in its final week here. If you didn't remember, Iwo Jima is a small island in the Pacific en route to Japan. It was the site of a fierce battle between about 20,000 Japanese and 100,000 Americans. It was during this battle that the famous iconic picture of the American soldiers raising the flag was taken. Eastwood made two films about the battle. The first one ("Flags of Our Fathers") was from the American perspective, showing the battle but also showing the men who were in that famous picture -- how they were whisked away to tour around the country and "sell" the war. It showed how they were victims of propaganda. The second film was the one I saw, "Letters from Iwo Jima" -- it is from the Japanese perspective.

I felt a strong pull in my heart to go watch it. It did not have English subtitles, unfortunately, but I had to see it anyway. The subject was heart-rending... men who were in holes with no hope, facing certain death. (Only about 1,000 out of 22,000 Japanese soldiers survived). They loved their families (and their country too, but mainly their families) and fought for them. It was a difficult thing to suffer so much. In America we have no idea how this feels. I wondered how everyone felt around me... I was the only foreigner in the theater, an American. Everyone (except one couple) stayed in their seats through the entire credits. I wanted to cry and didn't feel like I could walk.

I thought about the soldiers who returned home... they had been deceived by their commanders in Tokyo who were running the war. How hard must it have been to not only lose the war, but to be told that your "cause" was wrong!! That you had been the wrong side, the bad guys!! That you had been deceived by your leaders who pumped you up with pride, patriotism, words of sacrifice and courage, and belief in the power of your nation, race and heritage.

The parallel hit again.

I began to see that Adventism and Japan have had a lot in common. How hard is has been for us in Adventism to recognize that we were deceived from the start! By leaders, by spirits, by wrong information. We were pumped up with words about our specialness, our cause... how hard it is for us to realize that we were deceived!

And today in Japan there are still many people who are walking around in confusion about it! I walked out of the theater and could not help looking at everyone differently. They had been raised with confused education, never completely able to admit the truth about the way the public was manipulated. Some people (the right wing) maintain that Japan was a victim and not an aggressor (hence the rioting in China not so long ago). To the ears of the right wing and even many in the "middle", people who say Japan was in the wrong may sound "anti-Japanese", ashamed of their heritage and those who died for the country. Most people are left in the middle somewhere, confused about what really happened, and generally just not wanting to look back at these difficult things.

Couldn't I simply replace the word "Japanese" with "Adventist"?

These parallels are soooo many! It's incredible. Please pray for me in realizing these things -- that I will hear from the Lord in my spirit about what to do with them, how to intercede, and how to write them up if it is His desire that I do so. Thanks.

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