50 Days 'Til 50 Day 33--Prodigal Son

50 Days 'Til 50Day 33Prodigal SonAs a boy I was raised in the Episcopalian church because my family chose this faith so therefore it was to be mine as well. I remember Sunday school and other various activities to do with church. I was baptized when I arrived into my adopted family and was confirmed as young teen. I attended church functions, fundraisers, choir, and several church trips. As life started happening I had a very difficult time with the belief and a concept of God. In my limited thinking and perception my only thoughts leaned to “if there was this mighty and all powerful God, why did so many bad things happen to me during my early years. Why did my Father have to die when I was just 11? Why did my best friend die when I was in middle school? Why was I so severely harassed and bullied at school that my mother chose to move our family to another town in hopes that it might be better?” It was in these teen years when I turned completely away from the church. I knew it was important to members of my Family but I didn’t achieve the inner peace and solace that they had found. It became a bit of a chore having to give up my Sunday mornings and it was becoming clear to my Mom and Sister that I was drifting quickly away from them, the church, and God.At least once each year no matter where I was in the world I would return home. Generally for holidays and important life and death events and I would joke with my Mom that the Prodigal Son had returned. I was remembering this recently and realized I didn’t even know what the story truly meant and I had just been repeating some of the Sunday school teachings from my past. My understanding of this story was something like this. “A story about a son who left his family to go out into the world, returning back to them one day to tell them all about his wicked ways in strange far off places. Places that they would never see or want to see.” This was minimally accurate and maybe not even correct at all. I read a bit of this parable and its true meaning before writing this and realized I had missed the most important part of the entire story.  For those of you who don't know it, here is a summary of the story:There was a man who had 2 sons. The younger son asked his Father for his inheritance that he did receive and went out into the world and used this inheritance on wine, women, and debauchery. The other son stayed close to his father and helped him on a daily basis at home while his brother was running wild. When the younger brother ran out of all of his money, he had to resort to doing menial work just to afford to eat. He then decided to go home, in which his Father threw his arms around him and welcomed him back. The eldest son was pissed at his father’s reaction and had a fit. The Father told his eldest son that he had missed the point of his reaction toward his younger son. He explained to his eldest that he would always be grateful to him and that all that he had would go to him after his death. He explained that he was rejoicing in the fact that his youngest son had been lost and now was found, that his son was all but dead but was now alive and home.At 19, I didn’t have many thoughts or even look back over my shoulder when I said goodbye to my family, suitcase and dreams in hand. I just knew these far off roads were calling me. Calling me away from the comfort and familiarity of the roads I had grown up on. It was eventually the discomfort of these roads, which were now leaving me feeling confined and caged that caused me to go. The dream of the adventure that lay ahead was greater than the need to stay put in my tracks. Since high school graduation I had pretty much been a loner, the dreamer, the guy who would eventually show up at home to proclaim my latest great adventure with only a dime in my pocket and only the memories to share with a pretty disinterested audience. A bankrupt idealist I suppose. Self will run riot I’ve heard it described as and this was definitely me. My idea of my parents were the ones I called only when I needed something, usually money. The ones I called at the complete last resort, when my back was against the wall and I had exhausted all of my own resources. They always had and I assumed always would. They bought me my first car, paid for my first apartment while I was in beauty school, gave me what money they had when I asked for it. Looking back now it was probably easier to just pay me than deal with my wrath when I didn’t get my way. Maybe it was for the best I moved far away. I remember the look in my Mothers eyes when I left. She looked beaten down, barely a smile on her face. She looked tired and sad. It was sad. I had turned the one person that probably loved me the most in this entire world against me. I didn’t know it at the time but today it still brings a tear to my eye when I think about what a shit I was.I remember that fateful day. It was Thanksgiving Day. I had just borrowed my last dime to eat a chicken sandwich at a local Burger King that luckily for me was open on the holiday. I put my quarter into slot of the phone in the booth and dialed. I knew exactly what I was doing. I was calling for help, yet again. My Mom’s voice sounded different this time. She seemed more stern, more driven and although I heard her voice shake a little I knew I wasn’t going to get what I wanted this time. I cried to her how broke I was and how I had just ate my Thanksgiving dinner at Burger King. I used whatever was in my repertoire to get her to bend. I even sobbed that I wanted to come home. I will never forget to this day what she said to me. She said “No.” She said “I love you Josh but if you do come back here you cannot live in this house and you will have to make things happen for yourself without our help.” There were no “buts” or “maybes” in her tone, this was the real deal. I had long ago perfected the art of the temper tantrum. One of my most famous performances was on a family trip into Boston when I was four or so. I decided I wasn’t getting my way and decided to throw my tantrum inside my glass quarter of a revolving door going into the hotel. I was by myself kicking and screaming on the ground keeping anyone else from entering or exiting the building. I’m sure they probably just walked away until I worked it out, but it was memorable. Although I couldn’t lay down in this particular phone booth and stomp and froth at the mouth, with all my might I yelled a few four-letter words at her and slammed the phone down. I didn’t speak to her again for 2 years.A whole multitude of things can happen in 2 years. I spiraled even more downhill. I had my hairdressing license but chose to work at a small family run store, akin to a small Walgreen’s. When I lost that job because I couldn’t grasp the concept of having to show up on time I got another job. The very prestigious company Carvel hired me. In my best thinking I persuaded the manager to close early one night so we could celebrate by drinking in the back of the store. I don’t remember what we were celebrating, probably because it was a Wednesday. The district manager decided to do a drive by that night and when seeing the lights off 2 hours before they were supposed to be, we were both fired. I was living with friends who supported me the whole way. Scraping up our last dimes to make pasta dinners we could all eat for a week it was very obvious to me and those around me that I was going nowhere fast. Things happened to me during this two years of not speaking to my Mother. I don’t know for sure what happened and quite frankly I can only say it had to be a divine intervention. This God I had turned my back on so many years ago must have said to some of his angels, “this boy needs help and needs it fast.”I got honest with myself, probably for the first time in a long time. I had to. I had to take a good hard look at my behavior and myself. I had to surrender to the fact that my life was unmanageable. Hard for anyone to do, but even harder for this self centered, egotistical 23 year old. I had to change or I would die. It was that black and white. I had nothing left. I was done. I was more than done. In the months to follow I got this strange call one night from my Mother. We still hadn’t been speaking to each other and we didn’t speak for long as she whispered to me, “I know something is wrong and I’m coming down there to see you.” Nervously I got ready for her visit and was expecting the wrath that only a Mother knows for her children. I wasn’t sure I had changed enough to make any sort of proper amends to her but I kept an open mind.  Upon her arrival we hugged at the train station for what seemed to be hours. I didn’t care who was watching, I just knew I didn’t want to let her go. I cried in her arms as she did in mine. Something was different. I was different. During those following days I treated her like a Queen and behaved like her Prince. We shared miraculous moments together. I was able to honestly and sincerely apologize to her for my actions. Not expecting anything from her in return. She surprised me by revealing to me things I never knew about her before. How she had been married once before my Father to another man. How horrible he treated her, how scared she was, how she almost didn’t make it out alive. It was in that second I saw her, the real her. Not as my bank account, or strict maternal figure but as a woman. A real woman who had overcome some extremely difficult and scary times. All of my preconceived thoughts of her, all my unreal expectations I had put on her over the years just washed away. In that moment we were both baptized. We were washed clean in each other’s arms. At that moment we became friends.Unlike the Prodigal Son, I didn’t return home, home came to me. I was welcomed right where I stood by my family that night. I was forgiven. I was loved and had always been. I just didn’t love me, which was the problem. Like the Prodigal Son I did have to go out into the world and live, and lose, and find, and grow, and grow up. My family did embrace me when I returned home from my journeys. They were waiting for me. They had all just been waiting for me to come home.jf