Came to himself (thank you Dianne)

There is a line in the story of the prodigal son that is easy to miss. It comes as the transition in the story, but it also seems to mark the transition in the son. Not long after the younger son demands the right to live as he pleases, after he leaves with his father's money and gets as far away as possible, and after he loses everything and is forced to hire himself out in the fields, the story reads that the prodigal "came to himself" and, at this, he decides to turn back to the father. Today it is often translated that the son "came to his senses," as we might describe a man who, on the precipice of a bad decision or impulsive act, decides to turn around. But the phrase in the Greek literally describes the prodigal as "coming to himself," and seems to point at something more than good decision-making. In a sermon titled "Bread Enough and to Spare," popular English preacher Charles Spurgeon notes that this Greek expression can be applied to one who comes out of a deep swoon, someone who has lost consciousness and comes back to himself again. The expression can also be applied to one who is recovering from insanity, someone who has been lost somewhere within her own mind and body, only to come back to herself once again. With both of these metaphors, the prodigal son is one who wakes to health and life again, having been unconscious of his true condition. Standing in a foreign field hungry and alone, the prodigal comes to something more than a good decision. He is waking to an identity he knew in part but never fully realized. He is remembering life in his father's house again, though for the first time. Human identity seems a succession of inquiry and wakefulness. Who we are is discovered in layers of life and realization, questioning and consciousness. In this, essayist Annie Dillard articulates the progression of awareness and the rousing of self as something strangely recognizable--"like people brought back from cardiac arrest or drowning." There is a familiarity in the midst of our awakenings. We wake to mystery, but so somehow we wake to something known. Trapped in sin that controls the mind and keeps us in darkness, our condition is similar to the prodigal son in a foreign land. We are like those who have lost consciousness, caught in the madness of our own condition, until we are awakened to life with the Father. The apostle concurs: "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient" (Ephesians 2:1-2). "Coming to ourselves" is, thus, about waking to our human condition, claiming in our very identities our need for resurrection, our need for home. Yet another use of the expression comes out of the old world fables of enchantment. With this metaphor, "coming to ourselves" is like coming out of a magician's spell and assuming once again our true forms. It is reminiscent of the scene in The Silver Chair where the children are trapped beneath Narnia in the land called Underworld and persuaded to believe there is no such thing as a Narnian. The Queen of Underworld, who is really a witch, has thrown a green powder into the fire that produces a sweet and drowsy smell. In this enchanting haze, their identity as Narnians becomes hazy, and the world they thought they knew begins to disappear. But it is at this moment of despair that Puddleglum makes a>brave move. With his bare foot he stomps on the fire, sobering the sweet and heavy air. "One word, Ma'am," he says coming back from the fire, limping, because of the pain. "Suppose we have only dreamed, or made-up, all those things... Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one... We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow...I'm on Aslan's side, even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as much like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland." Coming out of their enchantment, the prisoners of Underland remembered they were children of another kingdom. Coming to themselves, they began to realize who they were all along. What if waking to our identities as children of the Father is like uncovering the people God has created us to be from the start? What if coming to ourselves is like remembering we are citizens of another kingdom, a kingdom we vaguely recall and yet long to return? The prodigal's awakening from the enchantment of his own sin and a foreign world came as the startling recognition of two palpable facts: First, that there was plenty in his father's house, and second, that he himself was starving. Waking to these two vital spiritual truths today, we reclaim the very identities given to us in the beginning. And doing so, we come to ourselves because we are setting out for home again. We come to ourselves because we are going to the Father. (RZ)