Prodigality

The other day I watched 'Nanny McPhee' with my family. -We generally don't get to movies while they are in the theatre, due to the business of our lives. So apologies for getting to this video long after most have seen it. At any rate, 'Nanny McPhee' seems an appropriate topic on the Sunday the lectionary blesses us with 'the prodigal son'. In 'Nanny' the children are much more particularly heinous, and less amusing than in 'Mary Poppins' to the extent that no nannys will come to help their father anymore.

At this point Nanny McPhee arrives, bearing an impressive collection of warts, a snaggletooth, and a bulbous nose.

As the children learn each of the lessons on the way to being good family members, the nanny loses one of her uglifying features, until finally, at the end of the story, with the children fully remediated, Nanny McPhee is a beautiful older woman.

What is up with this transformation? Perhaps, living in relationship, with all of its strictures, looks pretty ugly from the outside, much like returning to beg forgivess from one's father after spending all your inheiritance might. But from the other side of that transition -from the in-side of that relationship, there is much beauty.

May we find forgiveness, and find it in our hearts to provide forgiveness to those who repent and seek forgiveness from us. And may we find beauty in love, where true beauty resides.