Welcome Home - The Prodigal Son

Submitted by Peter on Sun, Feb 01, 2009

The Lion and the Prodigal Son

Perhaps you think it is your childhood home that you would find again. The childhood of your body, and its place of shelter, are a memory now so distorted that you merely hold a picture of a past that never happened. Yet there is a Child in you Who seeks His Father’s house and knows that He is alien here. This Childhood is eternal, with an innocence that will endure forever. Where this Child shall go is holy ground. It is His holiness that lights up Heaven. It is His holiness that brings to earth the pure reflection of the light above, where earth and Heaven are joined as one.
It is this child in you your Father knows as His Own Son.
- A Course In Miracles

Do you remember the Lion clip from Youtube? It was a clip from the Born Free Foundation. Two guys bought a lion cub in the 1960's. The cub became their pet, loved by them and their friends and neighbors. When the lion grew too large to be kept as a pet, they were encouraged to let it go free in the jungle. They did this.

A year later, they decided to go back to where they let the lion go to visit the lion. They did this, I suppose, to reassure themselves that they did the right thing. Some told them that the lion would be wild and not remember them. And this is the surprise in the video clip. The lion sees them and runs to them. Not knowing what will happen, there is a moment of tension. The lion runs to them and hugs them. It's the moment when the tension is released and you may be moved to tears.

The scene brings to mind the story of the prodigal son as Luke tells it in the New Testament. In the lion scene, the story is reversed - first, they two guys are the caretakers. Then, they are the the returning, and who can tell who is the lost and who is the found? Would we all wish to be welcomed home as they are here? This is the promise made to us by Jesus in the Bible and in A Course In Miracles. I put the Gospel of Luke on this site for reference. I was going to put only the chapter containing the prodigal son story, but I put the all of the Gospel of Luke online. The chapter containing the prodigal son story is in Chapter 15, Gospel of Luke. Would we welcome each other this way?

The related story in A Course In Miracles is in Lesson 183, linked here, A Course In Miracles Workbook Lesson 183 and a quote from that section of the Workbook is at the top of this post.

The original post about Christian the Lion is in this blog post. Here is the Youtube clip again: