A recently deceased primary school teacher never discussed his war time service with his pupils, preferring to concentrate on the present rather than dwell in the past where many unhappy memories were buried.
Taken prisoner in Singapore, Private Reynolds of the Royal Army Service Corps became an unlikely carer of the sick, and dying incarcerated in inhumane conditions. With Japan's star waning Private Reynolds was herded into a merchant ship bound for Japan when on entering port during a typhoon the ship struck rocks forcing the crew, and prisoners to abandon ship. Having survived the grounding Private Reynolds was transferred to working long, backbreaking hours at a steel plant where conditions guaranteed a premature death for many of his fellow prisoners.
With liberation Private Reynolds returned to the UK plunging into further education, including a teacher training course that led him to invest all he had learnt from suffering imposed by his fellow man, into assisting children how best to cope with apparent failure, and how to respond constructively to feelings of hopelessness when all appears lost.
“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.”― C.S. Lewis
Just a few years before his death Chariton Reynolds visited Singapore, and Japan to pay homage to his former comrades in arms whom he had helped to bury, and to forgive those who were so brutal in their treatment of their fellow man.
Through our journey of self discovery we learn never to repay with the same coin, those whose behaviour taught us never to imitate.
Romans 8:24-26 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
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