Imagine the Prodigal Son story with a different ending. Suppose he chose not to return to his father's house.

You remember the story, he lives with his father and older brother enjoying all that his father has provided for him and realizing that one day, he would receive his portion of it all as his inheritance.  Keep in mind that all that he had and knew including any opportunity for success was provided for him by his father.

For whatever reason (pride), he was tempted to strike out on his own, taking all that was legally his including his inheritance. As we know he did not manage his resources very well and squandered his wealth on carnal pursuits. In the story, once out of resources he finds himself eating with the pigs - in the Jewish mind pigs were the absolute lowest of God's creation. He hit bottom, came to himself and returned home.

But, what if he didn't? What if, instead he came to a revelation of himself and said, "I think, therefore I am", or "What the mind can conceive man can achieve" or some other modernistic self-motivating statement he had heard from Tony Robins, or Deepak Chopra. He raises himself from the trough, and instead of knocking on his father's door, he knocks on the doors of fiends he met on the way down to the trough. Most reject him but one finally gives him an opportunity. He excels at his work, builds a life, raises a family and is considered successful.

He tells his children of his father but because he left that home and family he was now forced to make his own way, as a result his children also have no way of return. And so, generations after generations are born, live and die separated from the father's house. Some, feeling the effects of the broken relationship seek to return but the older brother - the law - convinces them that they must behave themselves and obey him if they are to be allowed in. Unfortunately, they found that when they had fulfilled one law he would give them another and another. Because of this, many of the children gave up and like their father, the Prodigal, turned away.

Some tried to convince themselves and others it was all a lie, a social construct, a conspiracy to keep the children in fear and poverty - an "opiate for the masses". Others turned to simple distractions, amusements and self-destructive behaviors to shut out the memories of their forefathers and their true origins. Others decided to make the most of their life away from the father's house. They would take the pieces of the law that they liked and apply them, and modify them and distort them to their on purpose. They would justify themselves and others that thought the way they did and would call themselves "public benefactors", "leaders" and "unifiers".

And many, many other sophistries and strategies would the children pursue to convince themselves that they were not, in reality, still feeding at the pig trough.

All the while, the father of the house waits with open arms, looking, longing for the return of his son and grandchildren. Patiently he waits with loving care, peace and comfort. Waiting for his children to come to themselves and come home.