Life After July

Life is damn good.  Classes are fascinating, there is an amazing woman in my life, and those I love are doing well.  Katie is blissed out in Michigan (she could miss me a LITTLE more...c'est la vie), she will be home at the end of October and I am ready to see her.  Lots of learning going on, God is getting bigger and bigger and I am finding a path to witness that expansion.  God is good all the time.

Life after July...I met Jules on July 30.  I wish I could convey how beautiful she is...both physically and emotionally.  This is good for me:)  It's building my confidence...does that make any sense?  She is also a graduate of Yale, an incredibly successful business woman, and knows who she is.  I am continually astounded at how sure she is of what she wants.  She also has a big heart.  She heard the testimony of a woman at church who couldn't buy her daughter shoes and so she emptied her wallet and gave this woman the cash...$400 in cash.  And she's far better than I am at talking to people...people off the street that she doesn't know.  I have never seen her be short or nasty with anyone that has approached her, for whatever reason.

The point of this blog tho, is to tell you about my new interpretation of the Prodigal Son story.  We heard it Sunday night at MCC (Metropolitan Community Church) and it got me thinking about Joseph Campbell's description of the Hero's Journey.  He says in order for the Hero to succeed, he first must get off the couch and go on his journey, and then he must fail.  He must be stupid, trust the wrong person, do the wrong thing, and eventually, ask/need help.  Only then can he succeed at his journey.  So the definition of hero is not success, but failure.

So the Prodigal Son (PS) takes up his hero's journey and makes sure he is well supplied.  Well, he gets out in the world and finds things are not as they seem and he fails big time.  He ends up in a pigsty, (a good Jewish boy in a pigsty...not a choice most would make) and realizes that he has hit bottom.  This is when he decides to truly risk, by going home...not when he took his inheritance and left, but when he became humble enough to look at himself and ask for mercy.

His Father famously says, "All that I have is thine".  Do we truly know this about our God and life force?  Do we truly know that all that God, the Universe, the Goddess is...is ours?  I think we only believe what we can conceive of.  Maybe this is when we define a miracle...when something happens that we could not conceive of...but in truth, that potential was always there.  How much more potential is just waiting for us, surrounding us, but we want to "see" it, control it and so limit it?

So "all that I have is thine"...and the PS is now his own hero...having learned humility, many things about himself, and no small thing...that his Father loves him no matter what.  We can only hope that the PS will continue his quest for learning and life...but what about the 2nd son?  He was pissed!  Was it pure jealousy?  There certainly doesn't seem to be much love lost between brothers, but who can blame 2nd son?  Except...2nd son has his own path and it is not the path of PS.  So what is there to be jealous of?  What if 2nd son is really jealous b/c PS had the courage to go on his first hero's journey...had the courage to fail?  Did 2nd son really get up off the couch and take his own path, or just do what was easiest and expected of him?  AND - 2nd son has not stretched his love for himself, nor his concept of his Father's love...and so doesn't know how big that could be.

My thought is that 2nd son is afraid...afraid that he can't handle failure...that he can't pick himself up out of his own pigsty, afraid he wouldn't have the courage to ask for help, and especially afraid his Father won't love him, if he does something stupid.  So he chooses to be mad at his big brother...and wow, I wonder who was hurt by 2nd son staying outside in the heat, sweaty and smelly and not eating or drinking?  Reminds me of the analogy of hate...drinking poison and hoping someone else dies from it...

The bottom line is we all get to play these roles sometime in our lives.  When have you been the PS?  When have you been the 2nd son?  When have you been the Father?  truly seeing someone's potential for life, in spite of their screw-ups?  When has someone held your "potential space" for you, until you were ready to see it?  An important thing to remember as well?  None of these roles could have been played out, without each of the other roles.  We are all connected, all teachers, all students...all at the same time.