Human Extremes

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Human beings can fall on such extreme ends of the spectrum--cruel and ruthluss, grace-filled and forgiving. You get to experience both in "Unbroken".

I am always amazed, when I read true life stories, how ignorant I am of historical events. I am also amazed at how evil human beings can be.

"Unbroken" started kind of slow for me, but a few chapters in I became intrigued and involved with the story of Louis Zamporini and his experiences as a POW interred in a Japanese camp. I'm intrigued by several things. One, it is so difficult for me to comprehend how people derive pleasure from hurting and demoralizing other people. In so many ways, my brain just cannot grasp this. What sort of sickness drives a person to demand that person eat excretement, or beat a person for really no reason at all.

In fiction from the old days, people were sometimes referred to as souls. I like that. It implies to me, that you see not just a person's body, but their heart, their person. It says, you are a person, you are worthwhile, you are so much more than just a race, or a body. You're real, you have value. I don't know that we see each other like that anymore, and Rudy's experience, as well as the other POW experiences, attest to the fact that they are really, even less than invisible to their captors. In some way, their captors see them as deserving of mistreatment. Truly, I find this so hard to fathom.

And then the "souls", the people whom they are abusing, they have a quality that is also difficult to comprehend. They survive. They have hope. They remain human. Would I be able to hold on to these qualities in similar situations, or would I give in to hopelessness and despair? Would I give up?

Louis's story has a happy ending. He survives. He has angry and bitter years, but, through God's grace, he forgives, he is absolved of the demons of anger, and lives his life. Just that simple statement should be enough to astound us. He's a testament to God's power to change lives. His story humbles me in my small struggles to live a life of grace.

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