Have I walked this path?

I can not remember having come this way before;

Yet… strange feeling of familiarity haunts me

As each step I take brings me closer to home…

I still taste the pods I fed those wretched swine

A plague reminder of my sin and shame upon my tongue

Hazy images of the land I’m walking:

Imagination..

…or memory?

Something is not quite right

Can’t put my finger on it

Inheritance grasped…

Relationship squandered.

…and now returning to beg mercy and forgiveness

A Father’s compassion…

A butchered calf celebrating a life once lost

Now returned from the grave

…could it be?

Is it even possible?

NO!

That could never happen!

It wouldn’t!

It mustn’t…

Must…not…

But yet…

I find myself walking a path somewhat recognisable to me

A robe hangs across my shoulders – faded, torn.

Ring on my finger with shiny glint, long lost…

Forgotten?

Dirt-stained sandals worn beneath my tired feet…

Surely this is my first journey home…

Yes! – my mind is just playing tricks

That’s it… no one would return home to such love and acceptance

Only to turn his back and set out once more?

Nobody cured of blindness deliberately erases their sight

Pushes away the embrace of unconditional forgiveness

Heads back towards the shadowy abyss…

NO!

This is it.

It is me…

And I am walking home

Back to a place I knew

To a father who hasn’t stopped loving

Looking out…

Awaiting my return.