Have you ever met someone that is just downright crude and impolite? These sorts of people or these sorts of behavior are greeted with, “Were you raised by wolves?”. It is meant to get that person to behave better. The truth is that wolves run in packs and that is their family of sorts.
Being raised by wolves would really mean that the person knows their place, follows the leader, doesn’t venture outside the pack and doesn’t really challenge authority. Wolves know how to take care of each other and do so. No, what people are really referring to is a lone wolf mentality.
The lone wolf separates from the pack and becomes their own parent and does things their own way. The lone wolf has established its own code of conduct and no longer plays well with others. In a sense, the lone wolf raises itself.
I think that is what we are really hearing when someone says, “Were you raised by wolves?”. We are asking “who raised you?”. Where did that person learn to act that way? Perhaps this is the question we must ask ourselves in our spiritual lives, “who raised us?”.
As a child, I was a “latch-key” kid meaning I got home from school and no one was there so I was responsible for myself. Oh, it was clear as to how I was supposed to behave but it was far lonelier than my parents, especially my mother ever knew. When you are a child you shouldn’t have to be so grown up. In many ways, you are raising yourself, you are a lone wolf.
In the spiritual life, many of us if not most of us are “lone wolves”. We are trying to raise ourselves spiritually and we search for a long time to find a path that works for us. Now, who is our “parent” supposed to be on this journey? Our true Parent is the Living God, but our foster parent is the Church. Whatever flavor of a church you may have grown up in, the average church does not teach the spiritual disciplines, it does not teach us how to pray and what living the spiritual life is supposed to be.
In essence, we end up raising ourselves or, for so very many, they simply never grow up spiritually. As long as they stay “in the pack” they know who to follow and how to act. But then a day comes when a person gets separated from the pack and they are truly lost. No one to tell them what to think, believe or how to behave. Instead of being nurtured and encouraged to go off (into solitude or the wilderness) on their own in a healthy way, these lone wolves go their own way with little guidance.
Have you raised yourself? Have you been a latch-key Christian that had to figure out the spiritual life on your own? You should know that you really aren’t alone, that the Creator of all has been there with you every moment. Maybe it is time to find a different pack to run with. We have a name, Contemplatives or Mystics. We are around if you want to join us.
TMM