If you will, bear with me. This will make sense eventually.
When my mother died in 2009, I lost my faith in God. It was shocking to me because I had never experienced a lack of faith before. In my fundamental Christian household, my faith was an object for good natured teasing. My mother used to say if it takes faith the size of a mustard seed to move mountains, surely I had half of one.
I sat in a funeral home listening to the eulogy for my mother and God was nowhere to be found. I had written and delivered a rather good (I thought and others did, as well) eulogy for my father in 2000. But here I was without the words to honor the most influential person in my life. I was without peace. Without God. I finally understood what it meant to feel rudderless. My mother was my compass. Moral and otherwise. My mother steadied me. Now she was gone and I was lost.
Before my mother’s death, I felt a spiritual stirring each time I entered a church. It was a place of comfort and inspiration. Afterwards, I admired the architecture, appreciated the sense of community, envied the faith of the believers. For me, God was absent from the homilies, from His house. From my heart and head.
I went into therapy. Each week I talked about different aspects of my struggle and, eventually, I was able to find my mother’s voice in my heart and head. Therapists are good for that kind of loss, but losing God? No, that’s a different bailiwick.
When I was younger, my parents took me to Sunday School. First, to a Baptist church and later to one that was Methodist. One of the Bible stories often studied was the parable of the prodigal son and the interpretation by both churches was remarkably the same.
If you’ll indulge me, I’ll tell the story in the way I remember it being told to as a child. The parable is about the youngest son of a wealthy man. The son tells his father he wants his inheritance now, rather than waiting until he’s older and his father has died. The father, against the vehemently expressed wishes of his other sons, gives the youngest his share. The son leaves the family, goes off to The Big City and squanders the money on “wild living.” (Read, women and drinking.) Soon, the youngest son is broke and all of his new-found partying friends desert him. In shame, he goes home to his father and admits what he has done. The father, instead of chastising him, rejoices in his return and gives him a big party, which pisses off the older brothers. How could their father celebrate his son after his irresponsible and selfish choices? What message did that send to the brothers who stayed and played by the father’s rules?
Regardless of who was teaching the Sunday School class, the interpretation was the same. “God will welcome you back into the fold no matter what you have done and will rejoice in your return.” However, none of the teachers wanted to address the behavior of the brothers, to abject frustration of myself and my fellow Sunday School students.
Anyone with even a smidge of Piaget in their background knows that for young children rules, and the consequences for breaking them, is a deeply ingrained sense of justice. Children have expectations of behavior and, if broken, they feel angry and are personally offended when the consequences aren’t meted out.
Which brings me to the Student Loan Debate. Students, like the youngest son, asked for money upfront instead of working hard and saving for their tuition. The loans were given, the students went off to college and, after having a grand old time, realized the interest rates charged for taking on the debt were onerous. The government, in the role of the father, forgives the debt and doesn’t chastise the students for their errors in judgment. People without student loan debt are left feeling like the older brothers, angry at the government for not punishing the students, angry at the students for taking the money and not repaying it in full.
When I was young, my father taught me to look deeper into the stories of the Bible, telling me that Jesus was a smart man with a keen understanding of how people think and feel. Take the verses comparing people to sheep, he’d say. Most people think sheep are fluffy cute animals. Sheep are stupid, my father would continue, they follow blindly. When Jesus compares people to sheep, it’s not a compliment.
Instead of focusing on the prodigal son in the parable, I think we need to look at the brothers, because that’s who most of us are. We look on as someone has their debt repaid while we struggle, we watch while someone with less talent gets promoted. We ask God,where is the fairness? God replies, it’s not about fairness or equity or balancing the scales. It’s about each person’s journey.
Looking back, I can think of times I leapfrogged in my career over others with more experience and education. I remember times when I was stymied and someone else advanced with less qualifications. Ultimately, it was my reactions to those events that made them important, not the events themselves. It was my reaction that either reinforced my spirituality or impeded it.
My own student loans were paid off long ago, decades ago. Instead of resenting the memories of paying them off while working minimum wage jobs, I am relieved I no longer have debt hanging over my head. I finally understand the father in the parable of the prodigal son and I thank God that the spark of my spirituality has returned.
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