Rob was watching a nature documentary the other day that just fascinated me. It was about a certain species of cuckoo bird. This species is a type of brood parasite, which means it doesn't raise it's own young, but manipulates other species of birds into doing the work.

Here's how it goes. The female cuckoo finds a nest of another bird that has eggs in it. It pushes one of the eggs out and lays one of it's own and then flies off. The bird which owns the next returns and doesn't seem to notice that one of the eggs in the nest is significantly larger than when she left.

The cuckoo chick typically has a shorter gestation time and so hatches sooner than the other chicks. It instinctively pushes the other eggs out of the nest, or in the event that the other chicks have hatched, it pushes them out of the nest which it has no problem doing as it is so much larger. The documentary showed a father bird just watching as the cuckoo chick did that without trying to stop it.

Now the cuckoo chick has all the food to itself which it's manipulated foster parents keep on bringing. Before long the chick is larger than it's parents, but the parents still keep on feeding it.

This scenario has stuck with me strongly over the last week or so and I've pondered why. I think it's because I see similarities to my real life events as of late. I feel like my nest-life was invaded by the product of another, more powerful being that pushed other things - like common sense and ethics - aside to serve it's own purposes. This has happened numerous times in my life, and I have sometimes let that happen, ignoring my own senses in favour of the wishes of the more powerful. This last time, though, I decided to fight the illegitimate being and keep my own eggs - thoughts, values, beliefs - and I'm still fighting.

I turn the question to my friends - have you had cuckoo situations? Did you fight the foreigner or let it stay?

Last night's conversation:
Conor: I love you Mommy.
Me: I love you, too, Conor.
Conor: It's good that I love you, Mommy
Me: It's great that you love me, Sweetie. It makes me feel all happy and warm inside.
Conor: Also pink.

So I feel, at times, happy, warm and pink.

Other times, I feel angy, abused and humiliated. Work continues to be a hard place. My supervisor is fairly intent on belittling me. She has chosen to follow the lead of an unethical and incompetent CFS agency in scapegoating me rather than engage in an honest examination of the issues and acknowledgement of her own responsibility. In that scapegoating, she has insisted on micromanaging me, to the point that I cannot send an email that says, "Thank you" without getting her permission first. She also said the other day that the CFS agency is still "reeling from the damage you caused." Truthfully, they are the ones with the power and control and the ones inflicting the damage. They are offended because I pointed out that they are not following the principles of the CFS Act, and they have no good answer for this, so they pulled out the culture card and played it to the hilt. And my supervisor, because she is not a logical thinker, bought it.

But this whole post is not about complaining about her. It is about trying to find ways to live in a place that seems almost intolerable.

Faith is meaningful in this world. I have things come to my mind that seem to be coming from outside of me. I am reminded of stories like that of Joseph, who faced the double injustice of first being sold in slavery by his brothers and then being lied about by his boss's wife and subsequently thrown into prison. Like me, he was perhaps not the most polically astute person. For Joseph, it was probably not that smart to proclaim dreams about this brothers bowing down to him to his already jealous brothers. For me, it was probably not that smart to assume the best of the CFS worker and think that she could handle the expression of reasonable concerns when her behaviour all along has pointed out that she is not reasonable. However, whether or not he was always wise, injustice was injustice. There were other choices for his attackers, as there are other choices for mine. Joseph ultimately wound up in a place that probably not even he could have envisioned, saving many people from starvation. Could it be that even through this awful experience I will end up in a place able to influence the common good? I hope so.

I also feel a consistent reminder that breaking is not without purpose. In every life there are moments that break us down. Sometimes those moments reveal things that must change. I have seen things about me that need to change. One of those things is a tendency to assume the best of people. This has caused me to doubt myself, observatiosn and reason. It comes from a place of wanting to love. But there is a scripture that says, "be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves." There is a time to not assumet the best of someone but to let their actions speak for themselves.

Another thing that needs to change is who I allow to impact how I feel about myself. In this process I have read a lot of articles on scapegoating and mobbing, words that are used to describe the type of situation that I and many other employees encounter at work. Common in this scenario is that people who are being scapegoated and mobbed tend to start to doubt themeselves and their abilities. I've realized that I am too often blinded by position in letting people speak into my life. A certain dignified label or high rank does not necessarily mean that person is wise, loving, responsible or logical. Scott Adam's depiction of the incometent "pointy-haired boss" brings in so many fans largely because it rings true. But there is sometimes that little nagging feeling that I need to listen to a person with rank, even when it seems so utterly obvious that they are wrong. I need to put more effort into listening to who God says I am, and to the people who truly care about me and what they see in me.