The Incredible Shrinking Blog

Sigh.

Of the many things we've done well as we've started NewLife @ Night, this is not one of them. We've left this blog dormant/bereft/dead as a doornail and you, our reading audience, has been the ones who've suffered.

I'm not promising we're going to get that completely fixed any time soon... but if you're a part of the NewLife community, you're cordially invited to be part of the solution. Drop me a line at mark@newlifeeaston.com and let me know you'd like to become part of the blog team.

4/22/07 - Prison Break: Freebird

Cause I'm as free as a bird now,
And this bird you'll never change.
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can't change.
Lord help me, I can't change.
Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Freebird"

They don’t really want you to play ‘Free Bird’. They're just heckling you.
Guitar Hero

Then he said, "There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, 'Father, I want right now what's coming to me.'

This factory owner guy has two sons. The kid brother gets it into his skull that he's had enough. He goes to his dad, and as much as wishes the old man dead: "I want my 1/2 of the inheritance." The dad almost has a heart attack from the shock, but he sits down, does the sums, sells some shares and hands over half the family assets.

The son doesn't even hang around to hear his dad's top ten tips for survival. He legs it. Within weeks he's off to foreign climes, spending the nights filling the glasses of the designer set with his liquid assets. He has such a great time he can't remember any of it the next day. 'Course, the money goes down the toilet. So do the 'friends' when they realize he's broke. So he surfs around and finds a site called www.worstjobsposs.com . He scrolls through the search results and ends up cleaning out the pigsties -- not such a great career move, since he still counts himself Jewish.

He's there with his shovel, scratching away, and suddenly a light bulb goes on just above his head: What am I doing? The worst job in the old man's empire is, like jet-setter status compared to this. If I had any food in my stomach, I'd be throwing up. I'll hitchhike home. Work on a speech -- something like 'You don't have to think of me as family, but please, give me a job.'

After a long hot trip, he truns the corner into his old street. His dad sees him and runs out into the street in his slippers, throws his arms around him, lifts him up and spins him around. And the noise! The whole street hears it. Sooo embarassing!

The son starts his speech, but the dad cuts in, telling his assistant to arrange the biggest street party ever: 'My son was virtually dead, and he's come back. He was lost and now he's turned up. Let's party!'

Don't you just love a happy ending? Me too. Sorry, not this time. See, there's still the big brother issue. He's coming home from work, he turns the same corner and thinks he's in a scene from an old musical: dancing, music, tables up the middle of the street and everyone having a fantastic time. He calls over one of the waiters and asks, 'We just win the lottery or what?' The employee answers, 'Better than that, sir: your brother's back, and your dad's blown the whole entertainment budget on the party!'

That's the trigger. He loses it. Furious, he walks off, kicking lampposts, ranting & swearing. His dad catches up with him but he has to fend off words he'd never heard before from his eldest: 'I've slogged my guts out. Slaving over your accounts. Doing exactly what you told me to do - I've not even taken sick time when I fancied a day down the beach - and did you ever throw a party for me and my mates? No! But when this waster comes crawling back, oh yes, he gets the full treatment. Well, thanks for nothing!'

'Son,' his dad says, grabbing him by the shoulders and eyeballing him, 'you're around all the time, and I love it. What's mine is yours. But how could I not throw a party -- as far as I knew, your brother was dead! Now he's alive. He could've been anywhere, and now he's here, with us. Come on, join the party.'
Luke 15:12-32 (word on the street)