{"id":682,"date":"2014-02-19T16:54:07","date_gmt":"2014-02-19T16:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coolsociology.net\/SOAN324WP\/?p=682"},"modified":"2014-07-13T05:36:01","modified_gmt":"2014-07-13T05:36:01","slug":"creating-community-david-brooks-thinks-about-prodigal-sons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.mcguire-spickard.com\/SOAN324WP\/?p=682","title":{"rendered":"Creating community: David Brooks thinks about &#8216;prodigal sons&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>David Brooks published a very thoughtful essay in yesterday&#8217;s\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/02\/18\/opinion\/brooks-the-prodigal-sons.html\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times<\/a><\/span>, applying the lesson of &#8216;the prodigal son&#8217; to our current social divisions.<\/p>\n<p>He argues, in brief, that there are\u00a0<strong>two<\/strong> prodigal sons in the famous parable, not one. \u00a0There&#8217;s the younger son who blows his inheritance, repents of his bad choices, and crawls back to his father, seeking only a menial job and a place in the stable. \u00a0There&#8217;s also the older son, the prig, who judges his younger brother harshly and wants to punish him for his misdeeds.<\/p>\n<p>Brooks points out that only the father realizes that both sons are wounded, not just one. \u00a0Only love can restore either of them to wholeness. \u00a0Not judgment. \u00a0Not hectoring about &#8216;bad life choices&#8217;. \u00a0Not efforts to regulate others&#8217; behavior. \u00a0Just love and acceptance. \u00a0Brooks presents this as a powerful parable for our times.<\/p>\n<p>Those of us who have made the &#8216;right&#8217; choices need to overcome our tendency to judge and punish the homeless, the poor, and the weak, even if they have contributed to the mess they&#8217;re in. \u00a0We mustn&#8217;t reserve our love and help for just the blameless victims. \u00a0 If we do, we become less than human.<\/p>\n<p>Read the essay <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/02\/18\/opinion\/brooks-the-prodigal-sons.html\" target=\"_blank\">HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Brooks published a very thoughtful essay in yesterday&#8217;s\u00a0New York Times, applying the lesson of &#8216;the prodigal son&#8217; to our current social divisions. He argues, in brief, that there are\u00a0two prodigal sons in the famous parable, not one. \u00a0There&#8217;s the younger son who blows his inheritance, repents of his bad choices, and crawls back to &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcguire-spickard.com\/SOAN324WP\/?p=682\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Creating community: David Brooks thinks about &#8216;prodigal sons&#8217;<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[30,5,24,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-we-should-treat-each-other","category-news-link","category-reflections-on-our-reading","category-related-topics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p47OlK-b0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mcguire-spickard.com\/SOAN324WP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mcguire-spickard.com\/SOAN324WP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mcguire-spickard.com\/SOAN324WP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mcguire-spickard.com\/SOAN324WP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mcguire-spickard.com\/SOAN324WP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.mcguire-spickard.com\/SOAN324WP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":683,"href":"http:\/\/www.mcguire-spickard.com\/SOAN324WP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682\/revisions\/683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.mcguire-spickard.com\/SOAN324WP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mcguire-spickard.com\/SOAN324WP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.mcguire-spickard.com\/SOAN324WP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}