Being-Prodigal

by Austin Nicomedez on Unsplash 1 Up until a few years ago, if you asked me if I considered myself a person of faith, I am fairly certain I would have answered in the affirmative. I would have had the receipts too, of faithful observance and community that came with the particular brand I subscribed to, Pentecostalism. Sometime between then and now - and I would say it has really been in the past two years - what I believe has slowly become more fluid, the near iron-clad certitude of those days now replaced by what I can best describe as ambivalence. To riff somewhat on a marital metaphor, it feels like a marriage that has slowly unravelled, ending up in the unwanted woodlands of a divorce of sorts. For what it is worth, it has not been the worst of breakups though; I still retain membership in the church I called home, and continue to contribute to all the good work they do in the community. The songs and thoughts from those days still resonate deeply with me. On the outside therefore, it is not particularly apparent that a deep ambivalence festers. Underneath is where it has been a sea of change, the main symptom being an absence of a desire to partake in the spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible study and fasting. ...

– I trace the beginnings of my faith journey to Easter of 1992, the enduring image of the day being standing alongside forty or so other people at the front of the bare, minimally decorated Assembly Hall of the College of Education Ekiadolor. I was there because I had been dragged there by my parents; there being an Easter conference put on by the student Christian movement my parents spent a lot of their spare time supporting. Besides my irritation at being taken along — and thus losing the few days of freedom from parental supervision - responding to an altar call along with the others whilst sobbing profusely is the only thing I remember from the events of the weekend. That would not be the last time I would respond - or pray a similar prayer for that matter - but the sense of relief, joy and confidence about the future which followed that day is why I come back to that place as the definitive start of my spiritual journey. The sense of elation lasted for all of three weeks as I recall, but the sense that something happened that day is one I have never truly shaken off. ...

For The Sunday Muse prompt #122: ** We have carried our bodies to a far country, the weight of the burden of the duty of sons driving us like a ship heave-hoing in a stormy gale to the place where our kin were brought before. Each day we toil amongst the living to save the ones we hurt by leaving, the labour of our bent backs a libation poured on dry earth, to appease the spirits of the old ones. This is our penance, a prayer sung to the tune of the songs handed down. ...

Maybe it is the shock of the delayed cognition of turning 39 - perilously close to the age of eternal foolishness - or the weariness of dealing on and off with death and grieving that births this feeling hovering over me that I can’t quite place. It is not entirely inscrutable: the little I understand of it suggests part of it is a heightened sense of my own fragility, the deaths - ranging from old classmates of mine to friends of my father’s - underscoring the fleeting nature of life and with it the sense of time speeding by. The other part that rears its head from the haze is the feeling of drifting, one day blurring into the next which is barely distinguishable from the one that follows it with the only discernible purpose being fighting whatever fire glows brightest both at work and in my personal life. ...

Image: Rembrandt, The Return of the Prodigal Son (Source)– I trace the beginnings of my faith journey to Easter of 1992, the enduring image of the day being standing alongside forty or so other people at the front of the bare, minimally decorated assembly hall of the College of Education Ekiadolor. I was there because I had been dragged there by my family; there being an Easter conference put on by the student Christian movement my parents spent a lot of their spare time supporting. Besides my irritation at being taken along — and thus losing the few days of freedom free from parental supervision — responding to the altar call along with the others whilst sobbing profusely is the only thing I remember from the events of the weekend. That would not be the last time I would respond to an altar call — or pray a similar prayer for that matter — but the sense of relief, joy and confidence about the future which followed that day is why I come back to that place as the definitive start of my spiritual journey, never mind the fact that it lasted for all of three weeks before the reality of life brought me down to earth. That personal connection was the final piece of the jigsaw that created a church bubble for me. ...