A Parable of Two Sons and One Father

Author, Teacher Jared Byas

Two Sons: My Journey with God & The Bible

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2015/04/two-sons-my-journey-with-god-the-bible/

by Peter Enns

with Guest Writer Jared Byas

April 21, 2015

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THE ONE

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved his father and longed to be just like him. His father seemed all-powerful, all wise, all good. And the father always helped his son, told him what to do and which decisions were for the best.

The boy, he grew, and his childhood was glorious and serene. Whenever he faced a difficult decision, he’d run to his father who would hug him tightly and tell him just which road to take. The boy found such comfort, knowing that he could trust his father with every decision he faced.

At night, the boy would sit with his father by the fire and recount the difficult questions that had confronted him through the day. He’d tell his father his thoughts and hopes, but would always end the same way: “That’s what I want father, but just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” He was glad to trust his father with the answers for his life, to place them in the hands of one who knew far better.

When the boy became a man, his father grew ill. And for the first time, fear assaulted him; it struck him to the core. “I am lost without my father! How can I make a single decision without his clear direction?” And in that moment came the most devastating revelation of all: he was nothing like his father. He was neither wise, nor good, nor powerful.

The father recovered but the son never did.

THE OTHER

Once upon a time there was another boy who loved his father and longed to be just like him. His father seemed all-powerful, all wise, all good. And the father never seemed to help his son, rarely told him what to do and which decisions were for the best.

The boy grew frustrated. When he would ask (and I admit, sometimes he demanded) the best path to take, the best road to choose, the father would simply smile and say “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Day after day, the boy would come to him with a decision, a crossroads in his life, and the father would simply say “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” The boy felt unacknowledged. Hurt.

He would go to his mother in exasperation, yet she would simply open the book and read ancient tales about the father. Sullen and confused, he would say, “I don’t want to know what my father did; I want to know what I should do right now!”

But in bed at night, when the house was still, the boy would find himself reading the book again and again. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find clear answers to the problems he faced. He would slam it shut in disgust and say, “I’ll just have to make my own decision.” And so he did.

When the boy became a man, his father grew ill. He stood at his father’s bedside. “Before you go, I need to know one thing. Why did you never tell me what to do? Why did you never answer me clearly? Why did you give me nothing when I needed your direction most?”

His father replied, “Nothing? I gave you everything you needed. Giving you answers is taking; it is to rob you of the gift of the struggle. To be like me requires struggle. The struggle matures.”

The son considered this, and asked his father, “But why did you take the risk? I could have made all the wrong decisions!”

His father answered sternly, “Did you not listen to what I did tell you? Did you not read the book? You know who I am. I will always be with you, even to the end of the age.”

And then the son understood. His resentment melted away and was replaced by inestimable gratitude.

The father recovered and remained with the son, even to the end of the age.

How to hide a lie in the truth (via the Marx Brothers)

http://peterrollins.net/?p=2899

by Peter Rollins

posted July 4, 2011

While exploring the inner workings of language the theorist Lacan once offered a fascinating and deep reflection on the tracks left by different animals. He noted that most animals simply leave tracks in their wake; tracks that can act as a sign that they have passed that way. As such a hunter can look at these traces and work out where the prey will be.

There are however a few animals that cover up their tracks in an effort to efface the sign that would point to their location. In these situations a hunter must look very carefully to try and find the effects of this erasure.

And then there are a select few that make false tracks. Tracks designed to fool a hunter into going the wrong direction. Here only a hunter with a specific knowledge of the prey will know that the tracks they see are a sign that the animal did not pass that way.

However there is another, even more sophisticated, level than this. One in which the real tracks are intended to signal that the animal has not gone in the direction they suggest (a strategy that perhaps only animals of language – e.g. humans – can enact).

These different levels can be listed as such,

- The tracks are real and accurately direct the hunter (erased tracks fall into this category as long as there is some evidence of the erasure)

- The tracks are unreal and attempt to misdirect the hunter

- The tracks are real and attempt to misdirect the hunter

In short the third level refers to the possibility of employing the blatant truth in order to mislead the one looking at the sign.

To understand how this works take the example of a religious leader who is part of a community that actively holds repressive/naive views regarding such things as gender roles, gay and lesbian rights, biblical interpretation and scientific reflection. If the religious leader actually holds such views themselves they will quickly attempt to justify the churches position in a variety of (often contradictory) ways. However there is a more interesting phenomenon whereby the leader fully and freely acknowledges the repressive positions held by their community.

What is interesting about this position is how their willingness to admit that they materially participate in a repressive community operates. For when one speaks to such a person one is generally led to think that they are not what they fully claim to be. The honesty causes one to think that they are other than what they are. We are led to think that their intelligence and ability to admit the dark underbelly of their community means that they are better than the community they are part of, that they should not to be overly identified with that community and perhaps even that they must be trying to influence it for the better.

In such situations we would do well to take Slavoj Žižek’s advice and hold tight to the wisdom of the Marx brothers when they say,

This guy may act like an idiot and look like an idiot, but don’t be fooled; he really is an idiot

The Cycle of Hope in Life & Death

Take heart… there is Hope!
http://peterrollins.net/?p=2818

by Peter Rollins
posted 6/5/11

I remember, when I was young, reading a short story by the great Philip K. Dick about a man who discovers that insects are highly evolved beings intent on destroying humanity. If I remember correctly the insects communicate to one another through a form of ESP that the man is suddenly able to pick up.

He gains this unusual skill purely by accident late one evening while sitting in his house. The insects that he overhears quickly realise this and immediately send out a message to millions of other insects, telling them that the man must die.

Within a matter of seconds a mass of insects start appearing from everywhere. They ooze out of cracks in the wall, they slide through the slit beneath the door, and they flood from the gaps between the floorboards.

But just as it would seem that everything is lost dozens of spiders drop down from the ceiling and form a circle around the terrified man. One of these spiders addresses him saying, “You have discovered that the insects of the world are here to destroy humanity, but don’t worry we spiders have been placed here to protect you”.

The vast sea of insects edge ever closer as the spiders close ranks around the distraught man.

“Is there any hope?” he cries as the insects circle around him in their millions.

“It’s difficult to say,” replies one of the spiders, “there are so many of them. But we think there might be hope, so be courageous”

Soon the insects reach the circle of spiders and begin the overrun them.

Again the man pleads to the spiders, asking if there is any hope and again they reply with a cautious “yes”.

More minutes pass and soon the insects are crawling all over the man, millions of them. They begin to overrun his body and sliver into his various orifices.

“What’s happening” chokes the man to one of the few remaining spiders, “I thought you said there was hope”

“There is,” replies the spiders, “I promise that there is.”

“But I am dying” he shouts with his last breath, “they are killing me.”

“Oh” replied the spider, before succumbing to the flood of insects, “I’m sorry, but we never meant that there was hope you. We mean that there might just be hope for your species.”

As I reflect upon this story I am reminded of how much I want there to be hope for me… for my circle of friends… for my life. But perhaps this very narrow understanding of hope is not only misguided, but actually oppressive.

For there is a necessary shadow side to the belief that there is hope for me as I face my own demise and it is the sense that there really is no hope at all. These are not two separate realities but rather intimately tied to one another as heat is to light. Both of these feelings are centred upon me and focus upon my tightly bounded circle of reality.

But there can be a profound sense of peace as we expand the concept of hope beyond ourselves and the idea of our own longevity. Whether or not we will persist as an individual is not settled one way or the other when we expand our understanding of hope but rather becomes irrelevant (whether one believes in it or not). Rather we find a certain comfort in seeing ourselves as part of something much bigger, as participating in the ongoing manifestation of life herself. And that, whether or not there is any hope for us, there might just be hope for life, hope that she will eternally spring forth from the dark void of nothingness.

Eating with Others

On Consumption, Vomiting and Eating with Others
http://peterrollins.net/?p=2840

by Peter Rollins
posted 9/5/11

One evening a young man who is returning home after a long and tiring day at work gets a call from his concerned wife, “Dear, be careful on the way home as I just heard on the radio that some crazy guy has been spotted going full speed the wrong way up the freeway.” “Sorry love” he shouts back, “can’t talk right now… there isn’t just one nutter, there are hundreds of them!!!”

...One of the interesting things to note about this little anecdote is the way that the husband does not even entertain the possibility that he might be going the wrong way. Rather he takes it for granted that he is right. This is not a belief that he is conscious of, rather all his conscious thoughts are filtered through this belief.

This situation is sadly all too common. Let us approach this idea by briefly reflecting on how we encounter people with different political, religious and/or cultural values to our own. When faced with such a confrontation (that society all too often attempts to protect us from) our primal response is often one of either,

Consumption – Attempting to dissolve their difference by integrating them into our social body (making them like us)

Vomiting – Rejecting them from our social body as a foreign agent that must be expelled (protecting the integrity of our body)

Of course, most educated and enlightened communities attempt to avoid these very natural tendences, opting instead for a more reflective position that gets beyond these extremes of consuming the other or vomiting them out. This more thoughtful position can be described as eating with the other. Here the community seeks to sit down with the other and seek out places of convergence.

However this third position still operates from the same underling belief as the others,

Consumption – We are right and you are wrong. We shall integrate you

Vomiting – We are right and you are wrong. We shall reject you

Eating with – We are both right in some substantial way. Let us reflect upon where we converge and move forward together

In each of these cases we seek to exorcise or downplay the monstrosity of the other (their bizarre practices and beliefs). But what if one of the truly transformative encounters with the other is not where we try to annihilate their monstrosity (by abolishing it, rejecting it or domesticating it), but by coming into contact with our own monstrosity through it? In this alternative type of encounter we glimpse how we look through their eyes and begin to ask whether our beliefs and practices are just as strange.

This is the subject of a book that I am currently writing.

Which is Stronger: Grace or Law?
http://peterrollins.net/?p=2664

by Peter Rollins
posted 2/4/11

Aesop was such a powerful and insightful storteller. I was recently reminded of this fable he wrote that beautifully sums up the nature of grace and its transformative effect.

********

A dispute once arose between the Wind and the Sun, which was the stronger of the two, and they agreed to settle the point upon the issue – that whichever of the two soonest made a traveler take off his cloak, should be accounted the more powerful.

The Wind began, and blew with all his might and main a blast, cold and fierce as a Thracian storm; but the stronger he blew, the closer the traveler wrapped his cloak around him, and the tighter he grasped it with his hands.

Then broke out the Sun. With his welcome beams he dispersed the vapor and the cold; the traveler felt the genial warmth, and as the Sun shone brighter and brighter, he sat down, quite overcome with the heat, and taking off his cloak, cast it on the ground.

Thus the Sun was declared the conqueror; and it has ever been deemed the persuasion is better than force; and that the sunshine of a kind and gentle manner will sooner lay open a poor man’s heart than all the threatenings and force of blustering authority.

Feeling Mostly Like Winnie-the-Pooh

Great Theologians: Winnie-the-Pooh
http://peterrollins.net/?p=2600

by Peter Rollins
posted 24/3/11

“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it”

**********

We all experience life like Winnie-the-Pooh at times. We all have been touched by the feeling that we are upside down and traveling this path of ours all wrong. When this feeling creeps up on us it is deeply disconcerting. And so we try to avoid it. We fill our lives with distractions… we gather people around us who tell us everything is fine… we affirm our view of the world all the more vigorously (reading books, watching programs, reading papers etc. that solidify our view of the world and thus help to inoculate us from the experience of Winnie-the-Pooh).

Most of us flee from the idea that perhaps it is not the rest of the world who are wrong… but us.

However there are a few who allow this feeling to speak to them, a few who are brave enough to let this experience interrogate them, to break them, rather than attempting to domesticate it, tame it or repress it. These few open themselves up to a deeply disconcerting experience of feeling forsaken by all that has grounded them, all that has sustained them, all that has nurtured them.

This crucifixion experience is deeply painful, but just perhaps it can help to humanize us and open us up a whole new type of community. A community where we acknowledge our weakness, brokenness and frailty, a community in which we gather, not around the idea that we are right, strong, pure and good. But rather around our wounded flesh. Finding purity, beauty and truth, not in the renunciation of our weakness, but in the very midst of it.