THE PRODIGAL LIFE

In the last blog, I referred to the Prodigal Son, who longed to be reunited with the life he knew…and the father’s longing to embrace his estranged son. The story is deeper than a mere reunion…it is a call to live prodigally so that it gives the fullest of meaning and joy to our life. To live prodigally is to live EXTRAVAGANTLY – not to WASTE our resources and our life, but so as to GIVE life abundantly to us, and through us. (That is why the parable is sometimes called The Prodigal Father.)

Jesus tells us that this was his mission in the Gospel of John, “I came that they might have life and have it more abundantly” (10:10). In every way and to the very end, he gave his all for our sake, and for his…to be true to himself. And his own death, a death earned by the manner of his ministry, was the final, definitive act of giving. “He took bread, broke it and said, ‘This is my body given for you.’ Then took the cup of wine and said, ‘This is my blood…poured out for the many’” (Mk14:22-24).

During Lent we focus on the cross, and through our own via crucis of self denial and sacrifices we seek not only to remember Our Lord’s willingness to give his all, so that we might be evermore grateful for his sacrifice, but that we, too, might imitate him and give our all...for his sake…and for ours…to make our life truly worthwhile. A lesson dispensed by life is that sacrifices, suffering, and death can in many instances bring clarity to what really counts, and what is secondary, in life.

This struggle to make life meaningful and joy-filled is vividly captured in Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 epic, award-winning film, “Ikiru”. The protagonist, Kanji Watanabe, is a longtime bureaucrat in a city office who, along with the rest of the office, spends his entire working life doing nothing. He learns he is dying of cancer and wrestles with the meaninglessness of his life. As he struggles to find meaning he recalls a song from his childhood, “Life is short…fall in love”. And he does. He finds a passion within to promote a city park for children in a poor neighborhood. Single-handed he persists in getting approval from other bureaucrats and city leaders, and shepherds the construction to completion. He dies happily in the park, shortly after its completion, swinging away one night in a driving snow-storm, singing his song.

One hundred years earlier, Henry David Thoreau captured this same longing in each of us to live a prodigal/extravagant life. In his classic work, “Walden”, he wrote, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” What must we do to live the abundant life for which we yearn? "Fall in love"...hear the song that gives us life...and live uncompromisingly this life and this love!

The Lebanese poet, Kahlil Gibran, captures the essence of living a prodigal life (the first four lines are his, the others I have taken liberty):

To live is to grow
To grow is to learn
To learn is to understand
To understand is to love
To love is to serve
To serve is to give
To give is to live

As we focus on giving, perhaps it bears repeating what I said in an earlier blog, “We can measure our relationship with God – and being most true to ourselves – not by how much we give but by how much we hold back.” Often we are afraid to give too much; and this mediocrity of commitment is the greatest stumbling block to our holy encounter with God...to the discovery of Christ within…to a truly prodigal/abundant life.