From Russia with Blogs | hammered

Cynicism, the quick painkiller

Usually, while talking with the friends who I serve with, I get encouragement. I feel better even simply knowing that these people are in the same boat with me. They understand me because they are engaged in the same tasks as I am. We are soldiers who are fighting in the same battle. With some of them I have been through a lot. I saw their triumphs and defeats and they saw mine. This is why we value each others words and relationships.

But on a certain day something went wrong. While greeting my friend I asked a simple question, “How are things? How are you doing?” But what I heard in response haunted me for the rest of the day. In response to my usual questions came streams of anger, disappointment and accusations. They overwhelmed me. Personally, I had nothing to do with any of that, but perhaps it was my unlucky day. My encouragement and counselling attempts did not help. One word after another continued to hammer me into the ground. Perhaps the one who was saying all those things was not thinking about me in that moment.

Since that person was my friend, those words hurt me deep inside. I began to think. What if he is right? What if there is truly no point in us trying to save someone or to help someone? One side of me rejected such questions. But this was not the day for logic. Emotions razed everything on their way, not leaving even stone upon stone. As a result, my own mood suffered. My mood was so bad that I hesitated to even approach people. The rest of that day I spent in isolation, in gloomy and heavy silence, thinking through all that I had heard. There were many thoughts. Very few of them were good.

Of course, Jesus tells us that we are to weep with those who are weeping. But does it mean that we are to become angry with those who are mad and to lose hope along with the hopeless? Most importantly, how do we glue together the pieces shattered by the words hammered into us, especially the words of a person whose support and encouragement we sought? It feels like a stab in the back. When the shock is replaced with a growing pain, all that is left is a wound of mistrust and cynicism. Cynicism serves the purpose of quick painkiller, but like morphine it kills quickly. The words have the capacity to destroy and this I have learned from personal experience. Now I need someone who can glue together that which was shattered.

Writer: Captain Vadim Khurin was born into a family of circus artists. He joined The Salvation Army in 1995 and is now an officer serving in St. Petersburg, Russia. He loves music, sports, reading and learning. He has a beautiful wife - Inna - and three children. He likes to ask hard questions and find different ways of helping people get back their wholeness and integrity.

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