The Wolf of Gubio

Gubio is a small city in Italy, close to Assisi, where St. Francis was born and grew up. In those days, the people of Gubio were proud of their city and of themselves. When they would travel and someone would ask, “Where are you from?” they would say, with great pleasure, “I? I am from Gubio.”

Once the city of Gubio was in a great deal of trouble. A townsperson was found dead on the streets one morning. He was partly devoured. People were horrified.

A few nights later, another person was murdered in a similar fashion. A woman claimed she was looking out her window and had seen the shadow of a giant wolf.

The town panicked. People barred their doors and did not go out after sundown. Police walked the streets in pairs, but one night two policemen were killed together. The citizens demanded that their mayor do something.

The mayor had heard of a holy man in the next town, Assisi, who was reputed to be able to talk to animals.

“Have him come and talk to the wolf,” a council­man shouted. “Have him tell the wolf to go away.”

“Yes,” said another, “tell the wolf to go to some other town.”

So the mayor sent a delegation to Assisi. At the town’s piazza, the gentlemen asked for the holy man who could talk to animals. A young boy pointed out Francis, who was talking to people at a corner of the piazza.

“Him? He’s dressed in rags. He looks like a beggar, not a holy man.”

They approached Francis anyway, and explained their situation. “You must come and help us.”

Francis agreed to come.

A few days later, the people of Gubio saw a small man walk into the forest at the edge of their city. “That’s St. Francis,” someone said. They crossed themselves; this holy man would surely be devoured by the wolf.

At sundown, Francis emerged from the forest with a huge gray wolf at his side. The wolf was indeed a giant. The two walked to the piazza. Word spread quickly and everyone rushed to the piazza to see the wolf and hear the holy man banish it. Or perhaps he would let them kill it.

Francis raised his hand for silence. Then he spoke. “The wolf will not harm you any more,” he shouted.

The townspeople roared their approval. He raised his hand again and the crowd quieted.

“But,” he said, and he paused, “you must feed your wolf.”

The townspeople did not roar. They fell silent.

Francis turned and walked the wolf back to the forest, then started back down the road to Assisi. He disap­peared into the dusk.

The people were upset, angry. “What did he mean, feed our wolf?” ”It’s not our wolf.” “We should have killed it when we had the chance.” “The holy man is crazy.” “He was no help at all,” and so on.

That night, all doors were barred again and no one dared go out on the streets.

One little girl, who had been in the piazza, asked for large helpings at the dinner table and secretly dropped the food into her apron. Later, she put it all on a plate and, trembling, afraid the wolf might be wait­ing right outside, opened the front door and put the plate of food on the step. In the morning, the food was gone.

She told her friends what she had done. The next night, many children put plates of food out for the wolf. At first the adults were angry. “We should be poisoning the wolf, not wasting good food on it.” But when weeks went by and they noticed that no police­men or soldiers were killed on patrol at night, they had to agree that the children were right. They set up a rotation among families so that food would be put out for the wolf every night.

The killings stopped. People went out of their houses again without fear.

In time, word about their feeding the giant wolf got around. When they would travel, and someone would ask them, “Where are you from?” and they would answer, “I am from Gubio,” the person would say, “Gubio? Don’t you have a wolf?” and they would say with pride, “Yes, we have a wolf.”

Years went by, and finally the wolf grew old and died. The townspeople buried him with a great cer­emony and many flowers.

And a lament rose up from the people of Gubio, and they cried, “How shall we now feed our wolf?”

One way to interpret this story is to think of the wolf as our fears, or as those parts of our personality that we don’t like, won’t acknowledge, want to keep hidden away. Carl Jung, the noted psychologist, called this aspect of ourselves the shadow. We put parts of ourselves that we wish to keep hidden in our shadow. Interestingly, positive aspects of ourselves that we don’t want to acknowledge also go into the shadow.

Denying our shadow doesn’t make it go away. It’s part of us, like it or not. When we deny our shadow, it leaks out, usually in the form of projection onto other people. Once, years ago, when I was ragging about someone else’s shortcomings, a friend said to me, “You know, what you don’t like in others is often what you don’t like in yourself.” He was speaking of my shadow, my wolf.

Positive aspects of ourselves kept in the shadow can take the form of excessive admiration or hero­ worship. When I was in high school, I worshipped James Dean, the actor. He was everything I wanted to be-sexy, brooding, sensitive, intense. Rather than explore or develop those aspects in myself, I chose to see myself in Dean. It was easier, safer. It’s like saying. “I want to be a painter, but I could never be a Van Gogh, so why bother? Instead, I’ll admire what he accomplished and never pick up a brush.”

The Rabbi Zuzya once said, “When I die and meet God, He will not say to me, ‘Why were you not Moses?’ Instead, He will say, ‘Why were you not Zuzya?’”

To be complete, we must acknowledge our shadow side. We need to own it. We need to do the work to accept all parts of ourselves, the good, the bad, the ugly. That’s feeding our wolf. By doing so, the wolf doesn’t go away, but it does stop eating at us, gnawing away at our confidence, our power, our ability.