The Prodigal Son

On Christmas morning, I will be heading off to San Diego Airport to pick up my youngest son Tom and his wife Jenna, who are flying in from Denver for Christmas/Hannukah (Jenna is Jewish). Even though I have recently seen them both in NYC, I am still very much looking forward to their visit and spending a few days relaxing with them. Naturally, that gives rise to many thoughts about stories that come to mind.

I am a storyteller and my friend Gary is always wondering when I will run out of stories (wishful thinking?). The truth is that some days I have story ideas coming out of my ears and could write five tall tales if only I bothered to jot the ideas down in some manner. But other days I feel the inevitable monkey on my back to write a story either because I have been busy and therefore distracted or because nothing unusual seems to be going on. I usually challenge that assumption of boredom by picking apart events and trying to find little gems of ideas that might otherwise get forgotten or overlooked, and then write about them, perhaps aggrandizing them more than they deserve, but trying to make an interesting story out of them nonetheless. I do feel that I am reasonably objective in the assessment of my own work. I know when I have faked my way through a story or told an intricate story about something that is really quite mundane…stretching to do so. I also know when I have nailed a story or found a very juicy topic of interest. But there are some stories that have been told and retold by many writers and storytellers and seem to either never lose their poignancy or simply need to be retold over and over.

I’ve gone down the storyteller rabbit hole and am reminded that there have always been storytellers at the center of each era of humankind. Their stories span cultures, eras and mediums of expression. I can’t bring myself to think of Tik Tok or even Instagram as a storytelling medium, but it would be generationally foolish to assume that they are not. Certainly prose, plays, songs and movies are all mainstream mediums for storytelling. The ancient oral traditions of Homer, Aesop. Confucius and Scheherazade are the first that wove didactic anecdotes into stories that had memorable morals. The fables were carried on by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson in folk and fairy tales. Then came the likes of Dante, Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Voltaire, Maupassant, Twain and Tolstoy, all of whom honed the art of spinning great yarns that had imbedded in them great wisdom and righteousness. When one writes a story these days it is hard not to find that that story of the human condition was originally told and mostly told much better or with greater craftsmanship by one of these great storytellers that came before us. And of course, these are only the ones who became famous and whom I know well enough to list here. History is rife with great storytellers who will forever go uncredited and incessantly copied without royalties or even attribution.

A parable is a brief story that teaches a moral or spiritual lesson. These stories typically feature everyday situations and relatable characters to illustrate deeper truths or principles in an accessible way. Parables often have these key characteristics: simple, easily understood narratives, use of common and familiar situations or experiences, characters who represent human traits or behaviors, a clear message or lesson, and, a metaphor where there is deeper meaning. The Tortoise and the Hare teaches that steady persistence can overcome natural talent, especially when combined with overconfidence. The Boy Who Cried Wolf illustrates the importance of honesty and the consequences of lying or even exaggerating. The parable of The Prodigal Son is part of a triptych that follows one about lost sheep and a lost coin. It is where two brothers, the younger of whom asks for his inheritance and leaves home to live a sinful and reckless life. Then, when he has squandered his inheritance and needs help from his father, he returns to ask forgiveness. The father grants him that and embraces him without hesitation. The parable is often interpreted as a representation of God’s unconditional love for his children, and how God waits for humans to ask for forgiveness and then welcomes them back.

In this parable, the older brother, who has not strayed and remained throughout to help the father, struggles with the return of the younger brother. He says to his father, “I served thee and neither did I transgress, and yet thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.” I do not know how my children feel about how I have treated their siblings. Each child is different and has different strong points and flaws, just as we all do. I like to think I kill the fatted calf for each and every one of them as and when and how they need it. The Bible implies that those most in need of redemption somehow deserve more than do the righteous. I’m not sure I agree, but certainly they deserve no less in the fatted calf department.

Both of my sons are both perfect and imperfect, but they both go about that very differently. One is pragmatic while the other is idealistic in the extreme. I admire both traits. One is short and energetic and the other is tall and thoughtful. They are thirteen years apart in age, but are as close as…….. brothers. I am thrilled with all of my children, each for their own reason. My oldest son has become a very strong and savvy businessperson who came into his stride later rather than earlier in the race. He reached out for the brass ring on many instances and came up short, but kept on trying and doing what he needed to do to carry on. He has a fatalistic view of the world and does not ever seem to think that things will go his way, but it doesn’t seem to deter him completely from leaning in to make things better. He is committed to my role model for caring for and doing for the other members of the family and that is something few see but me. He is intensely loyal to the things he cares about and I am pleased to be among those. He has never left and therefore cannot be the prodigal son even though he is prodigious in his generosity.

My daughter is as soft and sweet as they come and yet, like her mother, has a spine of blue steel. She is fiercely protective of her two daughters and goes the distance for them each and every day, putting her in the Pantheon of great mothers. That is her highest and best use and she has always wanted it to be just that…just like her mother. She is responsible to a fault and yet has a wonderful sense of humor about life and all the foibles that it delivers.

And then there is the baby of the family, who I will pick up at the airport tomorrow. As the youngest, he is naturally the recipient of all the pokes and prods from his older siblings. He is the most sensitive of souls and that is his strength. His empathy is unusually acute and that makes him a friend to all. He is his harshest critic and is driven to be the best man he can be at all times. He would never lead a reckless or sinful life and instead is, like his father, a man of obligation. He is no more a prodigal son than anyone as he wants so much to be his own man.

The only thing that makes all my children fit the prodigal son parable is that I so appreciate their return whenever they come to visit that I always keep a fatted calf on call for the occasion. So tomorrow, we will once again kill that fatted calf and feed it to all 24 family members who will come to share in the joy I have in his coming.