The final scene in the "Prodigal Son" ballet is the embrace between the father and son. It's rendered beautifully and very dramatically in Baryshnikov's production. The father stands stock still as the son crawls up his body. And then, at the very last moment the father's arms close around the son as he holds him as he would an infant.
As I was watching this scene, I was reminded of Mirolav Volf's "Exclusion and Embrace." One lengthy section of the book is devoted entirely to a very close reading of the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). Volf writes:
"The secret of the son's transformation is the same as the secret of his unconditional acceptance: the father would not let his son--the 'lost' and 'dead' son--out of his heart's embrace . . . Relationship is prior to moral rules; moral performance may do something to the relationship, but relationship is not grounded in moral performance. Hence the will to embrace is independent of the quality of behavior . . ."
