We’d had heavy thunderstorms for several days, but the temperature had not dropped. When I took the dogs out first thing that morning, the air felt heavy, warm, and wet. Low-lying clouds hung over the woods in the distance, teats full of rain. Another storm was coming.

As I waited on the dogs, a small movement caught my eye to the left. With surprise, I noticed a fledgling bird on our back porch, peering up at me and seeming as surprised to see me as I was to see him. “Why, hello there,” I said, bending down to get a better look. “What are you doing here?”

The little bird looked at me soberly, craning his neck. Not the least bit afraid, he stared me full in the face as if to say, “What do you think I’m doing here? I’m lost!”

He didn’t appear to be wounded or hurt in any way, but was so still he looked carved of wood. Only his eyes blinked. As I ushered the oblivious dogs back into our house, I speculated about how he might have become lost. I knew of no nests near that part of the house, but scanned the trees for them anyway.

I went back inside and watched the little bird through the window, mulling over what to do. I could capture the bird, cage him, and feed him until he was old enough to fly and care for himself. Our youngest girls would be thrilled. I could leave him alone and see if he worked out his destiny on his own. I could wait and see whether his mother might find him. Surely by now she had noticed him missing.

“What are you looking at?” my daughter Juniper asked as she entered the room. “This fledgling,” I pointed. He’s fallen from his nest somewhere and is lost on our porch.” Juniper observed the little fellow with interest. “What are you gonna do about him?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I was just wondering about that,” I said as I fixed my second cup of tea for the day.

After a few minutes, Juniper exclaimed, “Mom! Look! I think his mother’s out there!”

Sure enough, a larger bird with his same coloring and markings was perched on the plant hook above the little fellow, chirping. “Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!” she’d say, and “Peep! Peep! Peep!” he’d reply. Once a hearty litany of chirping and peeping had been established, the mother began to move a foot away from her baby with each series of chirps. The fledgling followed, flapping his stubby little wings with excited salutes and standing tall on tippy-toes as if to say, “I’m with you, Mum! Aye-aye, Mum!”

Attracted by all the chirping and peeping, three or four birds of other varieties joined in the chorus and began to flutter around the mother-child pair with some excitement, one settling in our Redbud tree, another perching on the edge of a flower pot, one hopping between the roof and the top of a deck chair.

The mother and baby appeared to be Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, our state bird. With tails four times longer than their bodies, they can do air stunts and acrobatics like nobody’s business. But the fledgling had still the stubby wings and short tail of a child; without his mother’s help he was unlikely to find his way to safety.

I followed the pair past our pool house and to the mature pear tree near the fence dividing our yard from our pasture. In spite of the other bird calls surrounding him, the fledgling steadfastly followed his mother’s voice. The mother appeared to be leading her baby toward our barn. I worried about his ability to survive in the open as he crossed the field, and about what would happen when he couldn’t be returned to the nest due to his inability to fly. Still, his mother continued to chirp with confidence, insisting, “Follow me! Come this way!”

The last time I observed the pair, he had taken shelter under a lawnmower and she was perched on a branch above him, urging him forward. My husband had driven past us with a load of lumber and it was as if the mother had called, “Hide under that thing, junior, until Danger has passed!” Once my husband drove away, their journey commenced. Though a part of me fretted about what prey this baby might become in the open field, I had confidence in the mother’s ability to direct her offspring. She had gotten him this far; what she did with her baby was her business. She had not, after all, ever tried to interfere with my childrearing.

As I went about my morning chores, I thought about the small drama I’d witnessed over the past 45 minutes and a parable of Jesus came to mind. St. John the Apostle records that after Jesus healed the man who had been blind from birth, the religious leaders of the day confronted the healed man, accusing him of being a blasphemer and follower of Jesus rather than a true Jew and follower of Moses. Jesus had healed the blind man on the Sabbath, an act prohibited by law according to the religious leaders, who began to bicker over whether Jesus could truly be from God and be a Sabbath-breaker at the same time.

In response to all the bickering, Jesus told his followers,

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. And a stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.”

This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them.

Jesus therefore said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hireling, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, beholds the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees, and the wolf snatches them, and scatters them. He flees because he is a hireling, and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. (John 10:1-18)

“A stranger they simply will not follow.” Like the fledgling who knew his mother’s voice and followed it, beloved children hear the voice of the Good Mother, the Good Father, the Good Shepherd, and follow. It is the simplest thing in the world to follow the good shepherd of our souls when we know his voice, when we know from long experience that this voice can be trusted.

Children who have not been loved, but who have been abused and neglected and grown up unprotected do not know the voice of the good shepherd. Having been trained by parents who act like thieves, hirelings, and robbers, they became habituated to the voices of thieves, hirelings, and robbers. Their childhoods were lived in emotional war zones rather than sunny, verdant pastures fit for lambs. Never knowing from which direction danger might come, they lost the ability to hear the good voice and became accustomed to the survival mentality necessary for those raised in war zones. They cannot live in true community, do not understand or manifest loyalty, and deeply mistrust everyone, including themselves. Without a spiritual rebirth, they are doomed; this is why Jesus said, “You must be born again.”

Where is the hope for the lost lamb, the lamb who has been raised by hirelings, thieves and robbers, by shepherds who flee when danger approaches and teach their sheep that they’re on their own? It is in being born again, in somehow being taken to a place where they are once again protected in womb-like safety, nurtured and protected until the time comes when they are ready to come out of the womb (the tomb) and live.

Though it’s taken a good two months to do it, I’m finished with Patricia’s case study; this post may be considered a sort of post-game wrap-up, a terminal staffing of Patricia’s case. Although Patricia is a composite, she is a reliable composite of real clients. I never worked with a birth mother who surrendered her child who wasn’t devastated afterward, who didn’t regret it, and who didn’t long for her lost baby every day thereafter. Though some turned to addictions to numb their pain and thus mask it, the pain was always there. Though Patricia runs, she can never run far enough away from what she has done.

I had several clients like Patricia, clients who would never have given their children up for adoption had they been healthy people, for when they gave up their babies they sealed themselves in a special kind of purgatory reserved for birth mothers. They made sure that they would be punished for the rest of their lives for being who they were, for the choices they had made.

By this, I don’t mean to say that no mother should ever outsource her parenting to another couple or that a birth mother’s pain must be eternal and unending. I am all in favor of adoption when parents won’t get their acts together. Babies and small children get one childhood, and that childhood is short. If they don’t have healthy parents, children will be psychologically, spiritually, and emotionally maimed. All of us will pay the price. This is why, I think, the Old Testament states that the father’s sins are revisited by the third and fourth generations. In family therapy, when we do a genogram, we can see how patterns are, in fact, continued through three or four generations. Absent a healing, wounds are transmitted as surely as DNA. And I know for certain that every person alive is able to receive healing, able to be saved, eminently redeemable. I don’t mean to say that adoption is bad, that it causes an incurable wound.

What I do mean to say is that adoption and having one’s children removed to foster care occur as the result of a terrible fracture in the bones of a family. Breaks in relationship are symptoms. What caused the adoption or state intervention cannot possibly be a good thing. After having children themselves, even adult adoptees raised by the best possible adoptive parents will say that they can’t imagine giving their own child away. They say they would do whatever it takes to keep their children, and they do.

it’s not about adoption

But Patricia’s story is not merely about adoption. It would be easy to dismiss her study because adoption isn’t part of our lives. We’re not so wounded that we’ve cast away our own flesh and blood, we’ll say. We’re better off than that.

I think we should not be so hasty to pat ourselves on the back, because to whatever extent you or I were wounded, complexed, tied up in knots (as  Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh would put it), to that extent we too need healing and we too have passed on our wounds to our children. You will always see it when your children grow up, find partners, marry, have children and careers. You’ll see it in their friendships or lack of them, their mishaps, the conflicts they have with others, in what they do with their success.

One of the best examples of applied case history I’ve written was in “Talisman,” where I showed how Amanda’s wound, “Trailer Trash,” manifested itself in her life despite her extensive efforts to do other than what her parents had done. In middle age, she is very much like her parents were. The addictions have been cleaned up and are socially acceptable, and the chaos she creates in her life is chaos in the name of Good (work, helping others, etc.), but the effects are the same. There is no peace, no place of security or safety in her household, no order, very little nurture, no time to slow down, no insight or wisdom, no true spirituality.

I could give you a hundred examples, for I’ve seen it in every life of every walking wounded I know, including in my own life. We do it until we’re free, as I wrote in “Talisman.” It can be as obvious as the adult child of the alcoholic marrying an alcoholic. It can be as subtle as the survivor of sexual abuse growing up and appearing to be the picture of mental health, yet choosing to raise her own children in a neighborhood where the highest number of registered sex offenders live within a square mile of her home. It can be as subtle as the social worker who rationalizes her inhuman work schedule by saying she’s doing necessary work, helping the needy, while ignoring the fact that her own children see her no more often than she saw her own parents, and are no more known by her as a mother than she was by her own largely emotionally (if not physically) absent mother.

the good enough family

Sometimes people whose families looked good enough from the outside, and who had average or above-average opportunities but impoverished relationships fare the worst. Stan and Anita grew up in such families. Each had a high-functioning addict or personality-disordered parent; each parent divorced and remarried one or more times, using all the energy that should have been given to the children for the new romance. Each went to summer camp, lived in nice homes. They attended private schools and good universities, were members of fraternal societies and religious clubs. They were the pictures of success and ripe potential until they married. Then, though each continued to exhibit outward success–good careers, nice home, good cars–they and their marriage fell apart.

Like many upwardly mobile, intelligent young people, they sought good help and received it, spending thousands of hours and dollars on therapy. They improved and became better. But as soon as they decided to have children, they each compulsively began to re-create the very picture of disonnectedness and relational poverty with which they were raised. Like the sexual abuse survivor who moved to the nice town house in the midst of an area rife with sex offenders, they moved to a neighborhood surrounded by ghetto. In their one square mile radius were three halfway houses for addicts, nine bars, and numerous prostitutes and drug dealers. Their historic neighborhood was beautiful, but it was surrounded by a virtual war zone. They had chosen for their children a picture that was, in effect, exactly what had been given them by their own parents: the appearance of plenty surrounded by constant threats, impoverishment, and disconnectedness from intimate, supportive, and nurturing family relationships. They scorned the typical suburban neighborhoods their peers and family members chose because “normal” and “typical” had no appeal for their deepest, still impoverished selves. That part of themselves had not yet been called from the tomb; its stink was inevitable.

unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies

This is what we do. We get enough health to feel better, look better, and function better. But we do not heal the wound, because the wound is never healed until we die. We can die metaphorically, as Jesus and Buddha said we must, or we can die physically after living an entire lifetime unhealed and unwhole. But die we must. We know we’re not dead when we fight for our lives over things, when we cannot yield, when we just know we’re right and the other person is wrong, when we must have our own way.

I don’t believe in trying to stop people who are in the throes of a compulsion. Just as Liz tried to help Patricia become conscious to what she was doing to herself, and to how she was re-creating patterns, we can warn people. In fact, I believe that when we see others endangering themselves we’re spiritually obliged to try to warn them off. This is not easy to do in friendships or family relationships, and it’s not easy to do even when you’re a healer being paid to help others heal. But warn we must, with fear and trembling, looking to ourselves first lest we throw our own garbage onto our neighbor’s lawn. We must stop short of complusion in our insistence.

“If the unbelieving one wants to leave, let him leave,” Saint Paul wrote. If others must give in to their compulsions, then we must let them do it wholeheartedly until they are finished living their wounds. This is what Patricia did, and it’s what nearly every client does, at first. They do it at major milestones in the most reliable ways. Only a fortunate and stubborn few come back for more healing and eventually make it through to wholeness. This may be what Jesus meant when He said that the road to life was narrow, and few, very few, are those who are on it. The way to destruction is broad, and very, very many are on it. That’s what He said. He said we are statistically unlikely to avoid the wrong road.

love yields

I believe that one reason why Christians–and indeed all who live in religious communities–are taught to live in community and to avoid schisms is because it’s impossible to avoid schisms without dying to oneself. We all want our own way. We must have it. We cannot yield when under compulsion, when controlled by forces bigger to us than God. Even God yields. So it was that Saint Paul said, “All things are lawful to me, but I will not be controlled by anything.” When we see our children, our friends, ourselves compulsively enter marriages that others warn against, compulsively move away, compulsively insist that they will do this, do that, buy this, take that risk, and have their way, this is when we know that it is no longer love at work, but law. Love yields, suffers long, is patient and kind. Love can give the other person his turn first. There is no substitute for real love. Once you know it, you can never be fooled by a forgery.

The problem is that all too many people have never seen real love. They don’t know it, so they are fooled by forgeries. I’ve heard that when law enforcement agents are taught how to recognize counterfeit bills, they are given real bills to handle and smell first. Sadly, though, to the person who was raised with counterfeits, the counterfeit always feels right. Counterfeits feel more comfortable after you’ve lived with them for over 20 years. If even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light, we can be pretty sure that lesser compulsions will disguise themselves in pretty packages, too. They may seem and feel right; we may be able to get others to agree with us that what’s wrong is, in fact, right.

Before going ahead, though, we should ask what our healers, our shamans, our priests and confessors advise. Are peace and joy leading us forth, as the Prophet Isaiah said they would?  Or are we like Patricia, determined to do what we must?

Several weeks passed, but Liz didn’t hear from Patricia again. Troubled by the lack of contact, Liz tried calling Patricia. Her number had been disconnected. Finally, Liz called Jeanette Sizemore, the social worker who had first referred Patricia’s case to her.

“Oh, yes,” Jeanette said, “Patricia had the baby and placed him with a wonderful young couple from out of state. Everything is fine with the adoption.”

“I’m more concerned about how Patricia is doing,” Liz replied, “Do you have a current contact number?”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” Jeanette replied. “But I need to do a follow up visit myself. If you like, I’ll get her new number and call you later.” The two professionals agreed on this plan. Even so, Liz felt troubled as she slowly replaced the phone.

Patricia had never really wavered from her plan to give her baby up. Though at times she expressed typical motherly feelings toward her unborn son, more often she appeared indifferent or closed to the possibility of bonding with the baby. It was as if she was already carrying someone else’s child. Patricia had often said that she didn’t ever want to see her father again; Liz suspected that she harbored similar feelings for her baby. Liz had worried that Patricia would give birth and never even hold her son, so eager was she to distance herself from the child.

Was Patricia symbolically distancing herself from her weak mother as she separated her weak and dependent baby from herself? Or did she identify the little boy with her own father somehow? Babies could be awfully unpredictable and chaotic—maybe on some level the little boy would dredge up archaic feelings of helplessness in Patricia.

“In any case,” Liz murmured to herself, “it’s done now. Now all you can do is wait.”

A few days later, Liz received a call from Jeanette. “Liz, I have surprising news about Patricia,” she began. “When I got out to the trailer, it was empty. Her neighbor said that as soon as Patricia felt better, she packed her things, withdrew the girls from school, and moved to Kansas to be near her mom and sister.”

Liz leaned back in her chair, dumbfounded. “Are you sure?” she asked.

“As sure as I can be,” Jeanette replied. “I was just as surprised as you, because she had a follow-up appointment with us, too. I’m going to have to try to contact her by mail, but I don’t even have a forwarding address that’s current. She put an old address for her mother on her original paperwork, so we’re pretty much up a creek without a paddle on this one.”

Liz thanked Jeanette and disconnected the call, sighing deeply. The clock ticked.

Patricia’s file was open before her on the desk. Liz charted her call with Jeanette Sizemore, then closed the file and locked it in her file cabinet. A few minutes later, she heard a soft knock at the door; time for her next client.

Tucking her hair behind her ear, Liz took a cleansing breath and opened the door, smiling as she ushered him into the room.

Liz thoughtfully sipped her tea and thought about the progress her client, Patricia, had made over the past few months. Before getting to know Patricia, she would probably never have believed that she would find in her such a willing and able client. Patricia’s gutsiness and her agile mind combined to make her very determined, indeed. Still, several of her characteristics as a client were troubling, and tempered Liz’s admiration for Patricia with a more sober underlying assessment.

Patricia was as avoidant as she was determined, which combined to retard her progress and make it doubtful that she would complete therapy. Their closeness as partners in therapy seemd at times to make Patricia giddy, and when too much progress occurred, Liz could be sure that Patricia would later cancel appointments, bounce a check, or have some crisis that would delay one or more sessions.

And just in case a crisis or missed appointment wasn’t in order, Patricia made sure she was busy all the time. Though now nearing the end of her pregancy, her life was full of endless errands, projects, work-related tasks, parenting, and other activity that left her little time (if any) to reflect or to work on issues that had been raised in therapy. As a result of her compulsively busy lifestyle, Liz knew that it was unlikely that Patricia would make much progress at really reversing the destructive habits built during her crippled childhood.

“She’s still an orphan at heart,” Liz mused to herself, “a lost girl who never got what she needed–and is still paying for it–and perpetuating it.” If only Patricia would make healing her priority! Liz grinned wryly and said out loud, “Liz, now you sound like a therapist!”

Liz looked at her watch again and realized that Patricia was already 10 minutes late. She walked out of her office and asked the receptionist, Ashley, if there had been any calls. “No calls, Dr. Evans,” Ashley replied. “And no cancellations of any kind.”

Liz frowned. Not again. Patricia made time for what she wanted to do, whether it was PTA meetings or watching American Idol with friends. It was becoming increasingly clear that their therapeutic relationship wasn’t a priority, maybe because Patricia had received just enough help to begin to feel better about herself and her ability to give her children a better life than the one she’d had. After all, Patricia wasn’t an alcoholic and didn’t keep addicts and alcoholics in her life; that made her a better parent than the ones she’d had.

This was the problem that many clients had: they got just enough help and relieved just enough emotional pain that they thought they didn’t need anything or anyone else. After only one or two months (or even years) of therapy or even self-help, they considered themselves finished. Rather than plumbing the depths and fixing what was truly broken, they did a slap-dash remodel job, made things look better on the surface–”like a home staging you see on a remodeling show!” Liz exclaimed to herself–and then they quit therapy and quit doing the deep work they so needed. They raised their children with the appearance of ‘normal,’ but because real health was lacking and so much was repressed and projected, usually the selfsame problems that had occurred in the family of origin resurfaced in the next generation. Even if Patricia managed to keep drunks and enablers out of her own life, she was almost certain to have a child who developed an addiction or who needed to enable an addict, because Patricia’s unhealed, rejected parts would demand reparation and finally become manifest in the very children she sought to save.

Carl Jung admonished more than once that those destined to fall into a pit ought to prepare themselves for it rather than falling into it backwards. “Everyone goes into the pit of self-discovery,” Liz mused, “but most don’t go there voluntarily.” Yet how much better it would be if they did!

Liz picked up her desk phone and dialed Patricia’s work number. This was a young woman who could do this–she could make it! She could do something different than her parents and grandparents had done, if only she would stick with the grueling psychological work. But Patricia wasn’t at work, the receptionist said.

Liz called Patricia’s home phone and was surprised when a young child answered. “Is Patricia there?” Liz asked, and was answered with heavy breathing and the sound of little feet pattering along the floor. “IT’S FOR MOMMY!” the child’s voice cried, and after a moment a woman’s voice asked “Who’s this?”

“This is Liz Evans calling for Patricia,” Liz repeated. “Is she home? We had an appointment today.”

“Oh, this is her neighbor, Karen. But she’s not here. She went to the hospital this morning, she’s having the baby. Want me to give her a message?”

Liz’s heart sank. The baby? Already? She still had two weeks to go! Now what would happen?

“Yes, please tell her that Liz Evans called and that I’m hoping the best for her and the baby, and to give me a call when she feels like it.”

Dismay washed over Liz as she replaced the phone. Patricia was on her way to realizing that she could be a good person, and that she needed to heal and could heal. If Patricia stuck with her decision to give her baby up for adoption, she couldn’t possibly feel good afterward. On some level she might believe she was doing the best thing, but another fractured part of herself would also be a mother longing for her baby. Patricia would have to bury yet another part of herself, making it even less likely that she would be able to integrate all the disparate parts and find a cohesive whole in them, a Self.

Liz sighed, knowing she might never hear from Patricia again and knowing that whatever choice Patricia made about her baby boy would set into motion a lifelong chain of events. Liz had worked with enough families separated by foster care and adoption to know that, if Patricia chose adoption, it would not be as simple a solution for Patricia as she seemed to think it would be. And yet, if she kept her son, life would be even more difficult than it already was. Patricia was just as likely to have her healing thwarted by keeping the baby as she was by giving it up.

“Time will tell,” Liz said. “Time will tell.”