Sunday, August 7,2010

August is coming upon us and I think of last August when we lost Warren. Here is the picture of Betty and me and the Nixons at the Capitol. Sometimes I can hardly believe he is gone from us and we have made it almost a year!

No one was funnier than he was. And no one was so predictable--Mr. Candy Man of the Snickers game. He did what was expected--I will always remember his doing his part when we lost Velna--walking to the cemetery, sitting for the visitation, and coming to the dinner at the church. Betty tried to get him to go home after the service but he would have none of that. He said: "People will expect me to be there."

One week later he came to Cape for my festivities and I introduced him to the crowd. He stood and announced that his nickname for me was "Dirty Neck".

He was a force that we were privileged to reckon with.

Return of Prodigal Son

I will never forget the day a few years ago when I was visiting the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia and I stood in front of this painting by Rembrandt. Rembrandt was a master of capturing the psyche of his subjects. There are two primary figures--the father and the disheveled son. The father is stooped, his hands hardened by the years and his eyes are closed but I could not escape the overwhelming kindness evidenced in him.

The son has fallen out of his shoes; his head is shaved as though he were a slave; he does not dare gaze at his father but looks off to the side Whether the son is up to his old manipulative tricks or whether he is filled with remorse is not a question anyone can answer. Psychology allows each of us to consider the thoughts that are going through the father, the son, and the older brother. Other people are depicted who had to be making judgements on their own.

I love this painting. To me, it shows the true spirit of forgiveness where the father reaches out in joy to receive the son back into the fold. We don't know all the answers--whether the older brother stayed around, whether the two of them ever reconciled, whether the father was alienated from his older son, on and on.

But the one thing I hold on to is that the father reached out to forgive--unconditionally.

The Return of the Prodigal

Rembrandt painted it. It changed the life of the author Henri Nouwen, who wrote a book of the same name after meditating upon the painting. Three characters: Father, son and elder brother. Son and elder brother responded as could be predicted. The father did not. He ran with grace and forgave his son and his elder son welcoming both back into the fold.

I once was lost but now am found. The father of the story is the true hero, the true protagonist. We cannot understand this story unless we see it through the eyes of the radiant father., without whom there is no hope or joy.