Truth be told… I have a bit of the hero complex in me. It's one of my growing edges. When I was a child I always wanted to be the one to find the lost contact lens. I would raise my hand to volunteer before knowing what the task would be. I felt most comfortable when I was "of use." I got my assignments in on time, followed the rules, and was at the ready to pitch in.
It took me years to realize that you did not have to answer the phone at home if you were in the middle of something and that, if you bought the mattress, you could, in fact, rip off the label that warns penalty of law if you remove it. Of course I've never had the occasion to rip off the mattress label, but my astonished sense of freedom when I realized I could was… well… pitiful.
I was reliable, competitive and hyper vigilant. I was there when you needed me and better than the other guy. My most comfortable roles were either to be in charge or the faithful assistant.
All this was, in my mind, the way to keep out of harm's way. As long as I was useful I would not be disregarded. As long as I was needed, I would not be damaged. As long as I did the right thing, I would be approved of by… who knows what—whatever might have power over me.
Suffice it to say, I did not experience the world as safe; so I took it upon myself, in my childish logic, to make it safe. Now that's a big job (and, by the way… impossible). It doesn't leave much room for relaxing or for letting down one's guard. It invites worry, pride, perfectionism and the need for approval. It very nearly negates the possibility of self-forgiveness, which then distances one from the ability for any kind of forgiveness. Joyful abandon is a concept in other people's lives, and the ease of sleep is unusual, occurring only after achieving the rare sense of satisfaction from a job well done.
Any one else know bits of this road?
I am describing the survival mechanism of the over-achiever, an aspect squarely in the playbook of the hero archetype. (Also very common amongst UU's.) Some of the skills and sensibilities from this choice of living can offer positive energies and great accomplishments in the world, but it can also steer one far away from a true sense of inherent worth and dignity… the kind of worth and dignity that you do not have to do anything to achieve.
So when I first heard of this parable several decades ago, I thought—what—you have got to be kidding! This dude basically tells his father that he can't wait for him to die, convinces him to deplete the family funds so that he can have his inheritance, and leaves his older brother and father to tend to the home. He then "wastes his substance with riotous living" (KJV), squanders all his money, sows his wild oats without a word sent home. When he had spent his money, his energy and probably his anonymity, he crawls back home, humiliated and ashamed. The father welcomes the younger son home without a hitch, no questions asked, a big old welcome without reprimand or any expectations of recompense. And what does the older brother get? He gets to watch his father spend more of the hard earned riches on a celebration to welcome his ne'er-do-well brother and see the family's prized fatted calf slaughtered for the meal…a calf that the younger brother took no part in tending… Are you kidding me? What is that?
That is a forgiveness that transcends the logic of the collective ego, a claiming of worth that cannot be manipulated, a way of restoration that is counter cultural.
Our society is set up in the logic of meritocracy and judgment. We create worth by comparisons and dualism: good, bad, right, wrong, deserving and condemned, hero and villain. The ones in power creat the standards which we are trained to follow, replacing authenticity with cultural mandates, proving our worth to fit in. And because the system of approval is limited to our imagination rather than nature's wisdom, we come into a mind-set of scarcity, convincing ourselves that there is only so much worth to spread around. This sets up the illusion that we must compete for good standing.
This mind-set eeks into a merit based spirituality: the belief that the good life is earned and that our worth must be proved to be acceptable. Many of us project this judgment onto the larger Source of All Being, imaging that someone or something is keeping track of our lives… the knowing whose naughty or nice syndrome… and that cosmic acceptance is granted after reviewing the checklist of the deeds in our lives.
Even if we do not have a personal God—even if we do not proscribe to any kind of puppet master deity that parcels out acceptance—we have within our culture the aching feeling that we must make up for our imperfect lives.
This logic comes from our own observances. We do see that one thing leads to another—that we build on what we know. We learn from our experiences, we improve with practice, we create habits. But that is what we do, not what spirit is.
Spirit, or essence of life, cosmic harmony,what some may call Christ or presence of god, is timeless. It is always whole, it does not make up for imperfection. The love that permeates all things, the sense of belonging within the cosmos is not withheld, nor parceled out, nor saved up for special times. It is ever available and accessible if we get out of our own way, open ourselves to its reality and let its logic guide our lives. When we do this, we get to the place we need to be, we get to the only place that is real, we get to the home of our soul.
The story of the prodigal, or lost son, is the third of a series of parables in the book of Luke that directly follow the Pharisees' accusative murmuring about Jesus: "This man receives sinners and eats with them."
Sharing a meal for Jews in first century Palestine was a gesture of equanimity—equal worth—a sacred sharing and acceptance. That's why the meal for the prodigal son was such a blow to the elder son. Sharing a meal was a sign of blessing one another… "This man receives sinners and eats with them."
Jesus answers this murmur with the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son, one directly after another. They illustrate to the understanding that the peaceable realm, the way of wellness, love and equanimity will only come to being when all people come to know cosmic harmony.
Parables are symbolic tales that speak on many levels: to the heart, mind and spirit and to the culture of the hearers. It is believed that the elder son represented the Pharisees. The Pharisee, in new testament symbology, was sympathetic to an especially observant form of Judaism. Pharisees were pious, emphasizing ritual purity and strict adherence to law. Characterized in the New Testament, they were the high priests that judged others, followed the letter of the law but did not understand the spirit of the law as taught by Jesus. They were considered self righteous and hypocritical.
Historical research reveals this rendering as a characature only, an exaggerated description for the sake of story telling and lifting early Christians to a greater place of power. The word "Pharisee" can be translated as "separate one." In the populist feel of the gospels, the Pharisees were the clueless, hypocritical ones, standing apart as spiritually superior, trying to stop the true embrace of the love of God for all people. They judged people as "good" and "bad" and were impressed with externals over and above authentic relationship. Again, the historical accuracy of this rendering of the Pharisees has been refuted, but it served a political message at the time.
So, the elder son does everything right, living in the realm of "should." making sure he crosses all "t's" and dots all "i's." He devotes himself to being the good son, the worthy son, the one who is rightfully home. When his brother returns home, having abandoned that way of being, yet receives the full reward for wanting to come home, the elder son has no room within him for forgiveness. He deems the situation unjust and reprimands his father—the source of ultimate love—for not following the assumed rules of engagement.
And can you blame him, really, at first glance, for that reaction? He's toiled all his life, simply to come to realize that it ultimately meant nothing more than any other way of being. Can you see why he might feel a bit betrayed by his father?
How many times have we felt abandoned by what we thought should be protecting us, or at least, favoring us?
So the elder son felt no generosity of spirit toward his brother, he had lost his ability to feel joy for another's spiritual advancement. He had lost the sense of the well of goodness within him. He, too, was a lost son. He had exhausted himself by doing everything right to the point of losing a true connection to his own essential worthiness, to the breadth and depth of his soul's home.
Just as younger brother had become lost with a theology of scarcity in grabbing whatever he could and running, so, too, the elder brother had become lost in thinking that the merit of well being was in short supply, available only to those who earned it in his way.
When we apply the characters to our lives, we can see a bit of each in us. At least that is part of the points of parables. Just as I have found myself resonating with the elder brother, I can find times in my life when I have been the younger brother, squandering my essence because I was lost and unsure of what my life should be, filling my days with experiences to distract me from the feeling that I didn't know what I was doing. In retrospect, though, those times of confusion and careless living were times when I was simply lost, not intentionally disloyal. I had little expectation of reward and simply met each day as best I could. I was self centered and a bit reckless, unaware of the help I received that kept me safe and sane. The waste in that way of living comes from inattentiveness, squandering one's gifts that could be honed to a blessed song of true self. In my elder brother stages, I was intent on developing, but not particularly out of love of others, but out of a sense of survival and pride. The squandering there, the wasted life there, was in keeping my world small by needing to control it. The song of my true self, my welcome into life affirmation, could not gain enough breath in that rigged, judgmental state of mind. And so the tendency towards worry and a feeling of inadequacy. I would do the right thing because I thought that I had to, not particularly because I was thriving within my soul's home.
The father represents agape, unconditional love, the love of God, the logic of the peaceable realm. Something, again, that is within each of us. The elder brother, if not able to feel joyful for the younger brother, had available to him the realization that the "fatted calf"—the ultimate celebration of welcome—was consistently available to him. "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours…for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found."
It is odd to think of how much of our lives we can be as if we are dead or at least unconscious, not living the day we are given.
Henry David Thoreau, 19th century Unitarian, once wrote of his choice to live for a time in a cabin in the woods, "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
What does it mean "not to have lived"? In this parable it means living as if you are the center of the universe, ignoring the treasure of the cosmos within, whether it be in squandering external treasures and ignoring one's potential or closing one's eyes to the treasure ever around you shrinking the heart by relying too heavily on oneself.
It was then that I realized, while walking the dog one morning, that I was still among the lost sons. I squander the gifts of life constantly. When I walk out and see the sunrise….
And I realized, quite simply, as the presence of love within whispered hints of wisdom, that generosity of heart comes from gratitude, that strength of life comes from humility, and the all encompassing embrace of welcome and belonging that brings transcendent needs no fanfare or audition. What it needs is the willingness to see the potential for soul's truth in us all.
So may it be. Amen.
Copyright © 2009 Lisa Ward. All Rights Reserved.