The Boy Who Cried Wolf
On Saturday of the ACAAC, I attended a lecture by Nun Katherine entitled “Repentance as a Gate: Will the Prodigal’s Big Brother Enter?” She was reading from her booklet of the same title. Toward the end, she went into a territory that would likely unease many of us.
“As always, change begins with self, the only person we can really change. I invite you to think for a moment of one person in your life who seems to be in need of major life healing, of repentance, of a return to the Father. if this were miraculously happen today, how might that make your life harder as well as easier? What might it be like to have this person enter as a more equal partner in your shared relationships? What might you lose in terms of power and status in your group if this person had a more equal voice? How might you have to focus on your own problems rather than on theirs? What might you see in yourself if free to do this self-examination?”
Hearing this troubled me a great deal.
It got me thinking about my family’s own prodigal son, my older brother. Over the last 10 years or so, he’s sobered up and relapsed time and again. Each time he sobers up, it’s getting harder and harder to discern his genuineness. When he says he’s sorry, does he, deep down, really desire or believe in the ability to change. If the answer is no, then logic follows that he doesn’t want to. As I say all the time, why try and attain something which you deem to be unattainable?
Yet, what if he were to truly repent and succeed in healing? How much would that turn my paradigm upside-down? Would it shake me, or would I simply rejoice? More than this, however, I wonder if I would be able to recognize the true victory.
It’s been posited that “maybe redemption has stories to tell.” If he experiences true redemption, he’ll definitely have some stories to tell, I have no doubt. But, I can’t help but wonder if I’ll want to listen to celebration and joy as he shares them, or if I’ll pass them off as the same fables he’s told before.
I hope I get to answer this question someday.
Wow dude. This is good. Thanks. I need to think about how I can repent, rather than worry about the state of others.