When you become the Prodigal

What did you see?

“I saw a man in a great red cloak tenderly touching the shoulders of a disheveled boy kneeling before him. I could not take my eyes away. I felt drawn between the intimacy between the two figures, the warm red of the man’s cloak, the golden yellow of the boy’s tunic, and the
mysterious light engulfing them both. But, most of all, it
was the hands—the old man’s hands—as they touched the boy’s shoulders
that reached me in a place where I had never been reached before. … the
tender embrace of father and son expressed everything I desired at that
moment. I was, indeed, the son exhausted from long travels; I wanted to be embraced; I was looking for a home where I could feel safe. The son-come-home was all I was and all that I wanted to be. I desired only to rest safely in a place where I could feel a sense of belonging, a place where I could feel at home.

Rembrandt had painted father and son, God and humanity, compassion and misery, in one circle of love. Its size, larger than life; its abundant reds, browns, and yellows; its shadowy recesses and bright foreground, but most of all the
light-enveloped embrace of father and son surrounded by four mysterious
bystanders, all of this gripped me with an intensity far beyond my
anticipation. [I saw the] mysterious event of reconciliation, forgiveness, and inner healing.

The soft yellow-brown of the son’s underclothes looks beautiful when seen in rich harmony with the red of the father’s cloak, but the truth of the
matter is that the son is dressed in rags that betray the great misery
that lies behind him.”

>And then she turned and looked at me and said, “I could never be the Prodigal—why, I learned my lesson when I was 19!”

>He scoffed and said, “Prodigal? You mean that guy who went off and blew all his money and then slinked back with his tail between his legs to his dad?! Please.”

>Oh, I see, so you don’t think you could ever be the Prodigal??

Have you considered that we become the Prodigal when

-we compromise

-we forget what we knew

-we forget what God has done

-we let other things crowd God out

-we look to worldly pleasures to satisfy

-we go elsewhere for love

-we place expectations on others to do for us

what only God can do

-we become the Prodigal when we forget where Home is,

or refuse to go there . . .

I believe that shades of the Prodigal’s thinking are always threatening to encroach upon us—so much so, that we often fail to see their effect
upon us. Do you feel estranged from God? Turn around, and run back. Would you say that you just don’t “FEEL” him? Seek him out. Give him some quiet time in which to meet you.

I think that you will find what Nouwen did in Rembrand’s paint: “The somewhat stiff hands of the father rest on the prodigal’s shoulders with
the everlasting divine blessing: “You are my Beloved, on you my favor
rests.” It seems to me now that those hands have always been stretched out—even when there were not shoulders upon which to rest them. (You see—God has been waiting for you to turn around and come back even before you had realized you had moved away!) God has never pulled back his arms, never withheld his blessing, never stopped considering his son the Beloved One.

You and I are loved so much that we are left free to leave home…but the Father is always looking for us with outstretched arms to receive us
back and whisper again into our ears: “You are my Beloved, on you my
favor rests.” When you become the prodigal, just turn around—his arms are waiting for you.

Christine