The Return of the Prodigal Son.

in Theo class today Sir Bobby Guevarra was the one who lectured and I found
the class not only stimulating but surprisingly insightful.
He gave us excerpts from The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen
to read and I find this particular one very touching.

Searching Where It Cannot Be Found
At the issue here is the question: "To whom do I belong? To God or to the world?"
Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God.
A little criticism makes me angry, and a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise
raises my spirits, and a little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down.
Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves. All the
time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being
tipped over and drowning shows that my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy
struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that
defines me.

As long as I keep running about asking: "Do you love me? Do you really love me?" I give all
power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with
"ifs". The world says: "Yes, I love you if you are good-looking,intelligent, and wealthy. I love
you if you have a good education, a good job, and good connections. I love you if you produce much,sell much,
and buy much." There are endless "ifs" hidden in the world's love. These "ifs"enslave me, since it is impossible
to respond adequately to all of them. The world's love is and always will be conditional. As long as I keep
looking for my self in the world of conditional love, I will remain "hooked" to the world
--trying, failing, and trying again. It is a world that
fosters addictions because what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest craving of my heart.

I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.
Why do I keep ignoring the place of true love and persist in looking for it elsewhere? Why
do I keep leaving home where I am called a child of God, the Beloved of my Father? I am
constantly surprised at how I keep taking the gifts God has given me-my health, my intellectual and
emotional gifts--and keep using them to impress people, receive affirmation and praise, and compete
for rewards, instead of developing them for the glory of God. Yes, I often carry them off to a "distant country" and
put them in the service of an exploiting world that does not know their true value. It's almost as if I want
to prove to myself and to my world that I do not need God's love, that I can make a life on my own,
that I want to be fully independent. Beneath it all is the great rebellion, the radical "NO" to the Father's love,
the unspoken curse: "I wish you were dead." The prodigal son's "NO" reflects Adam's original rebellion: his rejection
of the God in whose love we are created and by whose love we are sustained. It is the rebellion that places me
outside the garden, out of reach of the tree of life. It is the rebellion that makes me dissipate
myself in a "distant country".