The Prodigal Son (in the key of F)

Esteban Bartolome Murillo - The return of the prodigal son

We all heard the beautiful story of the prodigal son, especially during the Lenten season. It is also known, probably more appropriately, as the parable of the Forgiving Father. Well, here is the same parable with a little twist, written in the key of F......

Feeling footloose and frisky a feather-brained fellow forced his fond father to fork over the family finances. He flew far to foreign fields and frittered his fortune feasting fabulously with faithless friends. Finally facing famine and fleeced by his fellows in folly, he found himself a feed-flinger in a filthy farmyard.

Fairly famished he fain would have filled his frame with the foraged foods of the fodder fragments left by the filthy farmyard creatures.

'Fooey', he said, 'My father's flunkies fare far fancier,' the frazzled fugitive found feverishly, frankly facing facts. Frustrated by failure and filled with foreboding he forthwith fled to his family. Falling at his father's feet, he floundered forlornly. 'Father, I have flunked and fruitlessly forfeited family favor.'

But the faithful father, forestalling further flinching frantically flagged the flunkies. 'Fetch forth the finest fatling and fix a feast.' But the fugitive's fault-finding frater frowned on the fickle forgiveness of the former folderol. His fury flashed. But fussing was futile, for the far-sighted father figured, such filial fidelity is fine, but what forbids fervent festivity.

The fugitive is found. 'Unfurl the flags, with fanfares flaring, let fun and frolic freely flow.' Former failure is forgotten, folly forsaken, forgiveness forms the foundation for future fortitude."