A Bloodied Tapestry

Imagine you’re a young man growing up in the pastoral farmlands of Canada, surrounded by your devout parents and seven siblings. You trek 16 miles to church each Sunday to further devote your life to the religion that you believe to be your calling. Life is hard, but you’re at home and alive. Then, like a shot from destiny, everything changes. You find yourself in South Vietnam in the middle of war, attempting to make sense and reconcile the faith and morality from the only world you’ve ever known with this all-encompassing hell of inhumanity and senselessness. This is the disconcerting experience that author JanStephen James Cavanaugh recounts in A Bloodied Tapestry.

In this autobiographical historical account, Jan takes readers through the time he served as a civilian volunteer in the Vietnam War and shows how this experience altered the trajectory of his life forever. Walk with Jan as he comes to grips with the realities of war, and how injustice and violence betray our better judgements.

Much has been written about the Vietnam War; however, this book is not a retrospect on the utter inhumanity and senselessness of war because—sadly—war continues. Alternatively, Cavanaugh extols lessons and observations about the war that may finally reach our collective consciousness and compel meaningful and noticeable change. Much more insight is needed as we fumble our way toward attempting to find a peaceful way to exist together. Cavanaugh still believes we can make the choice to let go of the injustice and ego that create war. He is still hopeful that together we can make the collective choice to turn our backs on war so we may progress and find greater meaning and compassion in our existence. This pursuit is what motivates Cavanaugh and inspired him to revisit this hell, so that we may finally experience the harmony that comes from humanity living in an age of peace.

Sometimes graphic, oftentimes uplifting, A Bloodied Tapestry is a personal account of one man’s immutable beliefs as they are challenged to the very core and his resolution to survive for a greater purpose.