The Prodigal Me

My recent reading foray into Henri Nouwen's book entitiled, "The Return of the Prodigal Son," has sent me deeper into the parable Jesus told so long ago.  Most of us know it as a parable which speaks about a father's love for a son who went off into a life of waste and debauchery.  It has always created in me an image of the father standing at the gate each evening looking for his lost son and then running to meet him when his form is seen in the distance.  Nouwen's writings about the parable will not allow me to linger at my first impressions.    

While I am not the first to come to such an observation, it surely seems that the parable encapsulates the whole of Biblical story from Genesis to Revelation.  A son born into the midst of the Father's blessings and riches spurns them, loses sight of who he is, and wanders away from where he was born to be.  He returns only to be served, loved, and treated once again as a son conceived and nurtured in the Father's love.   

We are captured by the story because it is our story.  It speaks of our own journey away from claiming who we are as a child of the Creator Father God and our wandering to a place in life where our identity is defined by the things our ego seeks to find.  Seeing the Holy One on the cross is a message to us all that God is not out there somewhere, but is present among us with a seeking and welcoming love wherever and whenever we find ourselves.  We have but to look His way, which is the way of the cross, to see that His arms are open to us and that we are invited to return where we belong.