Great Regulars: One senses that the father has always

taken the older son's dutifulness for granted, and that, perhaps, the older son has been so dutiful in order to win some greater measure of his father's love and approval. In other words, the family dynamics at work here do not seem at all simple and clear-cut.

I suspect that this parable, like a poem, means what it says precisely as it says it, and that to reduce it to a "message" is like "explicating" a poem by translating it into prose. It is, instead, one of those things we should think on, letting it sink into the well of our consciousness like a Zen koan, where it might bring about not merely an idea or a moral, but a radical change in outlook

from Frank Wilson: When Falls the Coliseum: That's What He Said: Great teachers and infinite caprice

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