In the past few months I’ve come across two remarkably similar quotes, both from men with first hand experience enduring violence. Though their suffering ran deep, it seems it was not the power of their enemies that left them terrified but the way harm disguised itself.
In 1963, in a letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. penned:
“Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
In 1987, in his book One Generation After, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel wrote this prayer:
“As for my enemies, I do not ask You to punish them or even to enlighten them; I only ask You not to lend them Your mask and Your powers. If You must relinquish one or the other, give them Your powers, but not Your countenance.”
When have you encountered trauma that wore a superficial smile or spoke pleasant platitudes? Where are places in your story you showed signs of wounding but the presence of harm was bewilderingly masked? What punishment or rejection, if clearly seen, would have been less disorienting to engage?