Several years ago, the Chaplain and I watched a documentary about parrots that was equal parts fascinating and disturbing.

What stuck with me was what the documentary had to say about the nature of parrots. In the wild, they mate for life. When they live solitary lives with humans, they attach themselves to their owners and rely on them not only for food and shelter, but also the attention and affection they would normally get from their mates in their natural habitat.

As it turns out, humans make crappy mates for parrots. We are fickle, have short attention spans, and I suppose, a low tolerance for squawking. And when parrots rely on humans for needs they should be having met by another parrot, they are disappointed. In the face of this, they can begin to turn to self-destructive behavior. They act out in the face of grief at their unmet needs. I’m not pretending parrots have the full range of emotions. But seeing parrots who had plucked half their feathers out in frustration and anger, covered with scabs from self-inflicted wounds, it was clear they were feeling something.

I was reminded of this misplaced need earlier this summer when I stopped at a rest stop on the long drive home from Pennsylvania after visiting family. I was alone in the car again, and feeling sleepy. I’d been listening to Brené Brown audio books on the road, books about vulnerability and belonging. While the content was really good, I was having trouble staying focused and alert. I sat on a picnic bench in the shade, staring off into space. I tried to give my mind the rest it needed so I could get back to driving.

Finally, I stood up, and walked to the rest area building to get myself a cold bottle of water. I walked past a woman with a beautiful, well-groomed bird on her shoulder. It was grey with red eyes and brilliant red feathers peeking out by its tail. I immediately remembered the documentary, and wondered what this woman was doing right to have such a pretty, contented bird. Perhaps the fact that she had him with her on a road trip and was taking him for a walk in 90 degree heat and high humidity should have given me a clue.

It occurred to me that those pitiful, self-plucked parrots in the documentary are how we end up when we look to other humans to fulfill needs God intended to fill Himself.

This is a difficult thing. Culturally, we are told that our life partners are there to meet ALL our needs: emotional, physical, psychological. We look to them for approval and affirmation. We are crushed when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable with them and don’t get the response we were hoping for.

In American culture, we battle with an additional nail in the coffin – independence at all costs. If our partner is unable to meet our needs (and they will be), we can find ourselves looking within to take care of the excess. It can be so hard to admit to failure in this regard. Perhaps that is because we instinctively know we should never have been doing it alone in the first place.

We may begin to feel our needs are too much and start throttling back what we’re willing to share with others. If you’re like me, you end of spending a lot of time ruminating. Sometimes, that ruminating can evolve into prayer. It can help prioritize what you want to share and process what you don’t. Other times, it never goes beyond ruminating and you end up with a vague sense of longing and dissatisfaction that things didn’t go the way you’d hoped.

I am carefully, tenderly looking at myself and trying to figure out what things I have contracted out to the Chaplain that I should be relying on God for. In many ways I’ve identified with the parrots, feeling desperate and alone, trying to meet my own needs and unfairly asking the Chaplain to handle what I can’t do myself. After we’ve both tried and failed, then I’ll go to God and ask for help.

It can be a hard cycle to admit to, and even harder to break. But when we are trying to get something from the wrong place, we are destined for disappointment. I don’t know about you, but I think I can probably do with a better existence than self-flagellation and impossible expectations of my mate that leave us both losers.

This photo is from a trip we took to the Bronx Zoo in October 2017. The Chaplain had just lost his job. We were trying to take advantage of the opportunity to do something together as a family, but we were struggling, and in the photos of the two of us, it shows (the American Gothic portrait comes to mind). But here, we have a bird reference, and happy kids. What’s not to love?