Going home

The Christian Science Monitor

The Bible tells us about the prodigal son, who asked his father for his inheritance, left home, and then squandered it on reckless living. At a time of famine he became destitute and had to take a job as a keeper of another man's swine. He nearly starved. When he came to his senses, he said, "I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants."^{Luke 15:18, 19.} He changed the direction of his life and returned home. His father forgave him and brought him back into the family circle.

The prodigal is symbolic of anyone who struggles with the notion that he can live or has lived without God. He wanted to "do his own thing," and he thought that happiness was found in material pleasures. Yet he discovered neither peace of mind nor success in such spiritual alienation; in fact, it led to poverty and despair.

The pursuit of sensual pleasures can blind us to who and what we really are—the children of God's creating, each with a distinct, individual spiritual identity that is forever satisfied as God's likeness. Mrs. Eddy points to this reality and to the means for making it more apparent in our lives: "The real man being linked by Science to his Maker, mortals need only turn from sin and lose sight of mortal selfhood to find Christ, the real man and his relation to God, and to recognize the divine sonship."^{Science and Health, p. 316.}

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