|
TRIUMPH OVER SHAME I started a family 16 months ago when I had a son. Well, my wife had him, technically. But it's not that family I want to talk about. As often happens to fathers, having a son made me start thinking about being a son. Twice. I'm a son in two families; one I know, one I don't. I'm adopted. I've been studying adoption to research a romantic comedy I just wrote (which is on sale afterwards in the back, for … one million dollars!). But I wasn't just researching the script; I was also researching myself. As I learned more about adoptees, I saw myself, and a lot of my "issues" portrayed, sometimes in uncannily accurate detail. But my share in the adoptee's suffering has happily been minimal. I was lucky-blessed, really, with my adoptive parents. I admire them for telling me early that I'm adopted, for loving me unconditionally, and for offering to help me search for my birth parents, which I have never done. Most of my life has been spent in denial of my adoptive status. Not that I won't admit I'm adopted, nor that I'm ashamed of it-I just never let myself think about it, unless forced to. For example, in 1978, when I was 12, the history teacher granted extra credit for watching a miniseries about the American Revolution, titled The Bastard, starring one Andrew Stevens. Andrew attends our church, for those of you who are new. Imagine the first time I looked over and saw Andrew and thought: "I know that bastard from somewhere." At the time, I lived in Connecticut, American Revolution territory. I couldn't wait to see the film. The Bastard was first a book by John Jakes, a bestseller during the Bicentennial. Birthdays are hard days for many adoptees, and downright awful for others, understandably. But America's birthday is usually a good day for me. Turning 10, hitting double digits, as America reached 200, I identified with America for many reasons. Maybe most because my name, Eric, after all, is at the heart of A-M-E-R-I-C-A. Anyhow, the story
of The Bastard concerns Philippe Charboneau, the illegitimate son
of an English duke who has just willed Philippe his inheritance. He
travels from France to England to claim it. His father's family betrays
him and he flees, alone, to the New World on the eve of the Revolution,
where he is reborn as Phillip Kent. He bumps into famous historical
figures, and bumps into a lot of pretty women. I mean a lot of pretty
women. Being just on the eve of the revolution of puberty myself,
I really identified with this guy. [CLIP FROM THE BASTARD: TOM BOSLEY AS BENJAMIN FRANKLIN TELLS ANDREW STEVENS AS PHILLIP KENT ABOUT AMERICA BEING A BASTARD COUNTRY] Now, aside from the sheer delight in seeing "Mr. C" as Benjamin Franklin, (That's nothing-William Shatner plays Paul Revere and I was still a Trekkie!) my imagination was seduced by Franklin's vision: America was a bastard that rejected that label and redefined itself instead. In creating community, we birthed a nation, one of the greatest the world has ever seen, but, like every other human creation, flawed. While I was studying a fictional American Revolution, the all-too-real Vietnam, documented in graphic detail every night on TV, lurked in my recent memory. Since this is Sanctuary, we must quote Bono: "Wim Wenders once said America colonized our subconscious. I knew what he meant. I loved it but it wasn't all love. What about colonizing the conscious? What about the other America some of us started to spell with a "k?" In the eighties this was the Amerika of 'contra revolution' and 'greed is good'… The liberation theology of the Sandinistas was crushed with the same tacit coercion as despots cruel as Saddam Hussein were fostered." In 1980 my family moved to another country: Texas. In the 1980's only 4 percent of Americans had a passport - and those were probably just us Texans going to Mexico for spring break! America had made an idol of independence. We couldn't care less about the rest of the world. We were acting like a bunch of bastards. I realized this when I myself got a passport and went to Europe alone for three months. The Berlin Wall was still up and I was a young American, riding the trains and getting an earful about Amerika with a 'k.' It was like discovering your father is really Darth Vader. But just as the adoptee Luke discovers Darth is really just his dad, one with major issues, true, I came to see both Americas as one, both as mine. Science fiction is huge with adoptees, by the way, especially boys. One of them says why: "I am attracted to space heroes because I understand someone cut off from Mother Earth." Not to mention Father God. Adoption is always in the news: Baby M, Calista, those poor twins sold twice on the Internet. And adoption has always been with us: The Code of Hammurabi, my favorite code, mentions it. (Actually, I just like saying "Hammurabi.") Under this code, an adopted child had the same rights and filial expectations as a child by birth, and the adoptive parents were likewise under legal expectation to provide for the adopted child as they would for a child by birth, on pain of annulment. On the other hand, if the well-treated adopted child discovered his birth parents and wanted to return to them, his eye or tongue was torn out. There was no social stigma against adoption, just against ingratitude. Much later, adoption secrecy laws were written to protect children from the social stigma of being adopted. Nowadays the stigma is not so bad, but the secrecy laws remain, hurting the very children they were supposed to protect. * * * * Author, therapist and adoptive mother Nancy Verrier diagnoses a troubling feeling at the root of some adoptees' psychological problems: "While guilt is often predominant for both birth and adoptive mothers, it is probably shame which is felt most by adoptees. The easiest way to understand this is to think of the difference between doing and being. One may feel guilty for what one has done, but shame for who one is. Shame is connected to an adoptee's belief that he or she is unlovable: He is ashamed of who he is." "The healing for guilt is forgiveness; the healing for shame is acceptance… The universal law is love, and there is no one from whom this love is to be withheld." Again, Verrier relates this to doing and being. You are forgiven for something you do, but if what you are is the problem, you cannot be forgiven, you must be accepted, loved. * * * * Since I was researching a script, I looked at movies for information about adoption. Adoptee-author Betty Jean Lifton notes that adoptees are drawn to the creative arts because of their ability to imagine themselves with various identities, as well as for their capacity to have a deep empathy with those that suffer. I looked at the obvious films related to adoption: Flirting With Disaster, Secrets and Lies, Mighty Aphrodite, but adoption is mostly just a plot device in these movies. I wanted the deeper truths of adoptees that I had discovered to be a part of my story. I wanted it to be not just realistic, but real. I wondered if other movies could help me, even if they didn't deal literally with adoption. Maybe they dealt with related themes. Robert Jewett is a theologian who puts the letters of Paul in conversation with recent films because they both shed light on the human condition. His first book, Saint Paul at the Movies, is more in the mainstream Christian tradition of how sin and forgiveness are depicted in films. In his sequel, Saint Paul Returns To The Movies, Jewett had undergone a profound change in his beliefs based on shifting from a guilt-based to a shame-based approach-even the subtitle of his book is Triumph Over Shame. Many films deal with guilt, based on the old model. Moments of grace in these films are moments of forgiveness of sins, real or imagined, as in Ordinary People when the son forgives himself for his brother's accidental death. In films that deal with shame, grace comes, according to Jewett, in the form of "accepting the unacceptable, treating grotesque and repulsive persons as worthy human beings…. Shame is felt when others demean us on prejudicial grounds, not because of what we have done, but because of our identity, whether it be our race, our culture, our gender, our ability, or our religion. The most damaging form of shame is to accept and internalize such evaluations, leading us to believe we are worthless, that our lives are without significance." Flannery O'Connor has said that in every great story, there is a moment of grace. Grace is a big word in the Christian tradition. One that's used often, but rarely defined, other than with moronic mnemonics. The U2 song Grace starts out, "Grace, she takes the blame, She covers the shame, Removes the stain." The song ends, "Grace makes beauty out of ugly things." The grace of being accepted as we are makes us beautiful. It sets us free from the bondage of shame, an idea we see both in Paul's letters from prison, and in moments from films about captivity, from everything by Robert Bresson, to a Dead Man Walking The Green Mile for his Shawshank Redemption, to this: [CLIP FROM AMISTAD WHERE ONE SLAVE TELLS ANOTHER THE GOSPEL STORY FROM A BIBLE JUST USING THE PICTURES] Funny how Moses, the first adoptee, biblically speaking, is a leading archetype of liberation theology. He's the great liberator, claiming his birthright for not just himself, but his community, crying out, "Let my people go." The Exodus of Israel, the "chosen" people-note that adoptees are told that they were "chosen" by their adoptive parents-the chosen, led by Moses, a stuttering, angry, murdering bastard, is one of the strongest images in the souls of Christians, Muslims and, especially, Jews the world over. This last clip I'll discuss shows the communal in its effect of grace. Once upon a time, in a Danish village, two adult sisters live with their father, the pastor of a strict pietistic church that's almost its own sect. Although the sisters have a chance to leave the village, they choose to stay, to serve their father and his church. Babette, a French refugee, arrives and serves them as maid and cook. After the pastor's death, the sisters decide to hold a dinner to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth. Babette wins a lottery and begs the sisters to let her plan the dinner. They give in, but agree not to enjoy the meal-that would be a sin. Babette lovingly prepares the feast of a lifetime for the members of the tiny church and a special guest. [CLIP FROM BABETTE'S FEAST] Just like in last year's Chocolat, the pleasures that the food and company bring transform the guests from religious, legalistic robots into lovable, loving people. Jewett comments: "The film shows that there is a need to infuse contemporary celebrations of the Lord's Supper with the spirit of Babette's banquet. There are times when the Lord's Supper should be celebrated as a love feast, an actual meal in which sensual pleasure and fellowship are combined." [COMMUNION IS SERVED] Communion serves as the ultimate symbol of family, of community, of acceptance, of grace triumphing over shame. We're all related in a sense-six degrees of separation. But Jesus also insisted we all have a "father," an "Abba," in God. Indeed, Jesus himself was illegitimate, am I right? Although I won't call Him a bastard! See? I ain't misbehaving! The question remains whether I'll search for my birth parents. Until now, I've been OK with mystery. Betty Jean Lifton touches me when she says: "For all the suffering, adoptees find that it is a relief to be part of the human condition. Those who, until now, felt bypassed and abandoned, can now allow themselves, in Erikson's terms, to be chosen and confirmed. They can dare to give love, and to receive it in turn. Having actively mastered what they had passively suffered, they are resurrected as their own person." I want that. To be resurrected as my own person. To be chosen and confirmed. So, I just want to announce that I intend to search for my birth parents. I need healing; my son has a right to his genetic heritage; and besides, I just want to hold the woman who gave me life and simply say, "Thanks." Maybe I'll even get to put one arm around her, and one around my other Mommy, and say "Hello, Mommies!" As you eat the bread and drink the wine, think of it as a celebration. We are free. We are not ugly ducklings but adopted swans. We are not as much from America, as from the world that God so loved. We value not independence but interdependence, pursue not individualism, but community. We follow not Superman, but Jesus. We do not feel shame in dishonor, nor pride in honor, but strive to practice acceptance, even as we experience that same acceptance through the mystery of grace and by the power of God's love. Amen. Cheers. Eric David
runs a website development company in Los Angeles and, like many other
folks in L.A., is a struggling screenwriter. After he and his wife
had their first child, Eric became interested in searching for his
birth parents. He just received two full pages of information from
his adoption agency (after only knowing about five sentences about
himself) and intends to pursue his search for his birth mother on
a trip to New York in July. ******************************************************** (This feature appeared in the Summer 2001 issue of the Bastard Quarterly.) All Rights Reserved
|