What happened to the Prodigal Son’s mum?

For some years now, I’ve been thinking that Prodigal Son’s dad was a single parent.

You know the story, don’t you?  The parable of a property owning dad with two sons, the younger of whom demands his share of the family inheritance while his father is still living and immediately goes off to squander it away on, shall we say, an ‘inappropriate’ lifestyle.  Finally, having got to rock bottom, he decides to swallow his pride, return home, and seek the forgiveness of his father – who welcomes him with open arms and kills the fatted calf in celebration – much to the annoyance of his jealous elder brother.

Perhaps I am alone here, but have you ever noticed how the boy’s mother is never once mentioned?  The longest parable that Jesus ever told and the person who brought these children into the world doesn’t even get a mention!  Was she not permitted to be the first to greet her long-lost son?  Was she too hurt by his initial disappearance to welcome him back upon his return?  Or perhaps she was not there at all?  Perhaps the story of this particular dad was of trying to manage a growing business, whilst also desperately trying to bring up two teenage boys in a way that would have made her proud?

Of course, we’ll never know.  But it’s interesting to note that when Rembrandt, in 1661, came to paint the Return of the Prodigal Son, he did an extraordinary thing.

Just look at the hands!

As the late writer and Catholic priest, Henri Nouwen, once pointed out:

“It all began with the hands. The two are quite different. The father's left hand touching the son's shoulder is strong and muscular. The fingers are spread out and cover a large part of the prodigal son's shoulder and back. I can see a certain pressure, especially in the thumb. That hand seems not only to touch, but, with its strength, also to hold. Even though there is a gentleness in the way the father's left hand touches his son, it is not without a firm grip.

How different is the father's right hand! This hand does not hold or grasp. It is refined, soft, and very tender. The fingers are close to each other and they have an elegant quality. It lies gently upon the son's shoulder. It wants to caress, to stroke, and to offer consolation and comfort. It is a mother's hand....” (Henri J. M. Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son.  1992)

For many of us, yesterday was Mother’s Day – a day on which we rightly celebrate the love, nourishment and comfort that our mums will have offered us throughout the formative years of our life.  But now I’m thinking about all the single parents out there who, for whatever reason, have to wear both hats (or hands) and play the part of mum and dad to their children.

It’s not easy playing two characters in the story of modern family life, that’s for sure.  It’s not easy to know when to apply a strong grip and when to caress, stoke and offer comfort.

So spare a thought today for single dads and mums everywhere who, like the father of the Prodigal Son all those years ago, are trying their best to hold the whole thing together and make it work.

And, above all, remember to celebrate with them when it does.

Why tell stories anyway?

It’s a simple enough question.

And while we’re at it, let’s throw in a couple more for good measure: why, throughout human history, have women and men insisted on ‘making sense’ of life by singing, painting, sculpting and writing poetry about it? And, why do these poems, songs and works of art so often speak the language of God and of stories bigger than what we ordinarily see or experience;

There’s a school of thought (Nietzsche et al) that argues that this aesthetic response to the world is simply a throwback to a time when that was all we had, before science and the evolution of rational thought had uncovered the convenient world of ‘fact’.  Stories and the language of ‘God’, they say, are nothing more than a fossil of a previous era, embedded in the childhood of rational speech. 

In his book, Real Presences, however, George Steiner argues the reverse.  We make sense of our world, he argues, only by exploring, postulating and enacting through song, verse and the visual impact of the canvas, the ‘necessary possibility’ of God – or, at the very least, a story that is bigger than we are.

The problem with science, according to people like Steiner, is that it too quickly assumed an all-important role and dismissed the art of telling stories, along with our creative imagination, to the childhood of humanity.

And so we became a people overwhelmed by information – with no sense of the ‘big picture’ or how to narrate the individual pieces of our lives into any meaningful whole.

The term for this story-less state of mind is post-modernity.  It was grown up.  It was cool.   But ultimately it destroyed our power to dream, create, innovate and believe.

Twenty years after the publication of Steiner’s book, the world has changed.

In fact, says Daniel Pink in his now almost seminal text, A Whole New Mind, we are currently seeing a radical sea-change of opinion: ‘a seismic – though as yet undetected – shift’ in the way we think.  To cut a long story short:

We are moving from an economy and a society built of the logical, linear, computerlike capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathetic, big-picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, the Conceptual Age.

So to whom does the future belong?  According to Pink, it is no less than the artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, and big picture thinkers who will be winners in this new society.  In fact, he concludes, stories will once again assume their rightful place.  After all, ‘stories… provide context enriched by emotion, a deeper understanding of how we fit in and why that matters.’

So where, ultimately, do you, do I, fit in?

According to Steiner, we need to go really big picture to answer this one.

Christian or not, he explains, all of us know of a Friday that speaks of injustice, of interminable suffering, of terrible waste, and of the absence of love.  We also know about a Sunday; a day that signifies the day of our liberation, justice, resolution and hope.

We know of these days and yet, for now at least, ‘ours is the long day’s journey of the Saturday.  Between suffering, aloneness, unutterable waste on the one hand and the dream of liberation, of rebirth on the other.’

On the Saturday, this longest of days, we sing, tell stories, and imagine a better world.  Of course, looking back from where we have come, our words can hardly begin to capture the terror, pain, and sheer awfulness of the Friday; and, at the same time, we know that when we finally reach our Utopia, even our best stories, along with all that is aesthetic, will appear to have no logic or necessity. But without these stories, says Steiner, how could we be patient?

So perhaps the question wasn't quite so simple after all.