Perspectives

“Perspective” is a word that keeps coming to mind lately.  It is a complex word, one with lots of alternative meanings in any dictionary, some short and straightforward (“a mental view”), others longer, more complex (“the capacity to view things in their true relations and relative importance” or “the appearance to the eye of objects in respect to their relative distance and position”). Seemingly inherent in all the definitions is that there is no single perspective.  Somehow, what came to mind this morning was the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 11:15-32.  Same events, same facts, but oh my! – different perspectives as between the younger son, the older son, and the father.