Month: September 2019

I’ve been pretty wasteful. By definition, I am therefore prodigal.

That’s not the way I’ve tended to see it, however. The biblical story of the prodigal son has always left me with the impression that the selfish and wasteful son was prodigal by virtue of his return. A greedy guy had left and been lost. Later, he returned and was found. To the kid who would hear the parable once a year in church, and even to the adult who might reference it on occasion in a metaphor or analogy, to be prodigal had more to do with return than with departure. Being prodigal – to this kid and adult, at least – was a sort of renaissance, a rebirth. I didn’t need rebirth, not personally, because I had never left, not that I knew of. It was others who had veered away, from family, values, or themselves. That veering, when corrected, was somehow the essence of the prodigal. The return was what mattered.

Which it does, in both moral teachings and perhaps in life. But the return is not, by nature, the prodigality. The departure is. The spendthriftness. The recklessness. The waste.

And not all prodigality leads to rebirth.

This may seem fairly elementary. Besides, what does it matter, after all, that I misunderstood the adjective in the context of the tale? Is not the important message – the moral – of the story within the act of acceptance from the father when the wayward and bankrupt son decides to return?

The story of the prodigal son is not one unique to the Bible. There is evidence of it in ancient Buddhist teachings as well. While some features are different, the main plot line is the same: selfishness, loss, return, and redemption. It seems to be part of the human story. Someone else’s, in particular.

For most of my life, that someone else has been fairly predictable. It was the self-centered businessman who, upon financially failing, discovers charity. It was the morally decrepit politician who, through personal grievance, encounters justice. The hospital administrator who, when sick, learns about compassion. The angry child who, upon the unexpected death of a parent, yearns for forgiveness. The prodigal was the other. It was him or her. It was you. It was my own brother.

It was never me.

And so I have likely missed a myriad of opportunities for insight, for learning, and for, dare I say, grace. Because waste does not need to occur in prodigious quantities for it to matter; a person doesn’t have to lose everything in order to qualify as prodigal. Small aliquots of intemperance can suffice. Recognition of life’s little excesses and improvidences offers repeated portals of potential renewal and regeneration.

Every September, in the Catholic church, this week’s gospel is the story of the prodigal son. I know this not because I attend church sufficiently to be familiar with the liturgical cycle. Instead, I know it because this week is also the anniversary of my mother’s death. Nine years ago, two days after she suddenly died, I slipped into the back of one of the churches where Mom worshipped, hoping to meet the priest after mass and ask if the church was available for her funeral service the following day. When I entered, mass was in progress. The first thing that I heard when I stepped through the church doors was the reading of the gospel of the prodigal son.

How ironic, I thought. I wish my brother could hear this. After all, he was the one of us most at odds with our parents. Of course now, given what had happened to Mom, he would probably rush across the metaphorical field of time to support our emotionally distraught father. And Dad should embrace him. As Dad did. And I would not feel jealous. As I did not.

I felt something worse: quiet judgment. Through the lens of the parable, I smiled at the “biblical” nature of our situation. I heard the message of parental acceptance and filial renewal and I vowed not to let my own ego interfere. It did not; it just missed the whole message of the moment. For when I heard the gospel of the prodigal son that morning, I identified myself with the brother who had never left, the one who had, it appeared, been prodigal. And so I wasted the opportunity for my own return.

You see, only this week did it occur to me, through a brief series of unexpected yet welcome communications, that I don’t really know my brother. Not really. I know what he has done in his career, yes. I can give some details about the arc of his life but only like a sports fan can recite the statistics of an athlete. I don’t understand who my brother is, who he has been, or who he aspires to be. I’ve always seen him through the prism of certain character features rather than the unfiltered perspective of a whole person. I’ve never tried to get to know him on his own terms.

The same might be said of many of my relationships: they’ve tended to be somewhat stereotypical. Given the choice of being the welcoming father, the loyal child, or the prodigal son, I have – metaphorically and sometimes consciously – worn the mental garb of loyalty. In doing so, I’ve muffed chances to recognize my own prodigality. And I’ve undoubtedly missed many moments to embrace the return of others post their own prodigal departures.

I have, in short, wasted my wastefulness, through both unawareness and inaction. Here’s hoping I can better learn to see some of my lapses sooner, so that the opportunity to learn from my prodigality will not continue to be needlessly squandered. I may not, in many instances, desire return or deserve redemption. Therefore, I seek only attentiveness and gentle awareness – and the patience of fraternal grace.

Perhaps as evidenced by my repeated reflections on it, the ego subject – at least for me – can be confusing. And confounding. Frustrating too.

The other day, for instance, someone was presenting about the importance of establishing ‘ego-free zones’ in a particular line of work. Egos were simply not permitted, the person said. What happened if someone brought their ego to the effort? They were removed from the project, without second chances.

The presenter sighed. “I personally fired four people, on the spot.”

My own ego was no doubt to fault for my internal reaction to the news of the firing. While others nodded, my insides got themselves tangled in a thicket of skepticism. How do you determine that someone’s ego has or hasn’t been checked at the door? Who gets to decide? Why couldn’t the ego-laden project contributors have been coached into more ego-lax approaches?

To be fair, the situation being referenced was high stress; initial impressions could leave a sour, lingering effect on work that was vitally important. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder whether the behavior under review might have been something other than that of people’s overactive egos. Was it possible that something else was going on?

We all know the personality type of the obvious egoist: pushy, lots of “I” and “me”, an unbalanced concern for how circumstances will impact the self versus others. These people are tiresome. They can be domineering, powerful. They often are in charge.

Which is probably why I get suspicious when people in positions of authority talk about ego-empty behavior. My own experience has been that, deep down, I myself have wanted to be personally recognized for high-minded, laudable values when I’ve spoken in public or work settings about the importance of ego-free service. It sounded good, sure – until I learned that the true servant does not need to talk about service because she or he is usually keeping their lips closed, their eyes soft, and their ears open. That wasn’t necessarily the case in past circumstances when co-workers or I have trumpeted the cause of humility and selfless service orientations. None of us were paragons of so-called ‘servant leadership’. Our words were louder than our actions.

And so I’ve stopped admitting that I’ve read certain texts or support particular leadership styles, if the topic of service arises. I don’t trust that I’m able to engage in the subject with the right level of humility.

Unfortunately, that distrust extends to others.

All of us have egos, yes. It is part of the human experience, an inherent component of identity formation and interpersonal differentiation. But the show “between our ears” can become more than just an internal processing platform, a way of making sense of interactions, feelings, and daily activities. It can become an individual form of big screen and stage entertainment, designed and displayed for a solitary viewer. We can see ourselves as saviors, martyrs, role models, change agents, and champions. We can become the sole protagonist of our own unique story. If that happens, we can mistake the mind’s eye magician for a miracle maker or masterful creator. We can become so enamored with the script cried from the internal stage that we mishear our own barker’s call of self-discovery as a message of transformative meaning intended for the outside world.

Sadly, I was suspicious of the easy socialization of ego-unfriendly dictates summarized by last week’s presenter on collaboration. My own internal braggart raised his wiry eyebrows. He wanted to engage my attentions elsewhere. He would have loved for me to peek behind the curtain camouflaging my under-appreciated brilliance. He goaded me to say something interesting and insightful so that others might have a similar view.

I just breathed. I listened to the presenter. I marveled at my own feeble grasp of egoism’s essence.

Is writing about this now itself an act of ego-centricity? It could be. Although I don’t intend this brief revelation to be self-flattering, it is possible that the very divulgence of my recent reaction to the topic of ego is yet another example of my own ego’s manipulative attempt to be heard.

The orator standing center stage in my internal story can be quite the trickster.