Sam Keen - Prodigal Father Wayward Son: A Roadmap to Reconciliation

Praise for Prodigal Father, Wayward Son

The brutal candor of these exchanges between an estranged father and son caught in a vicious cycle of competition and incomprehension can be hard to take. Stick with it. Both have hurt each other so much that reconciliation comes hard. But what they prove in the end is that the statute of limitations can run out on the wrong we do to one another. Every father and son, mother and daughter, parent and child should exult in the Keens discovery that it is never too late to start over.

Bill Moyers

A courageous look at father-and-son struggles over the years. This universal and archetypal [conflict] is the inheritance of us all. I identified with Sam, and found insights about my son through Giffords sharing. Their method of reconciliation is a gift for us all. Here is a raw human story that has a joyful ending.

John Bradshaw, author of Post-Romantic Stress Disorder: What to Do When the Honeymoon Is Over

In this fine book, honest and eloquent pain spills across every page. This open-hearted sharing is in the service of great teachings. Many fathers and sons will read this and see a path forward.

Mary Pipher, author of The Green Boat

Prodigal Father, Wayward Son is the most heart-opening book I have ever read. On the surface, it is about virtually every dad and son. Beneath the surface, it opened my heart to further removing the walls between myself and those I yearn to more deeply love. Its fierce honesty and loving grace lead the way. Of Sam Keens many terrific books, this gets my vote for his best.

Warren Farrell, author of Father and Child Reunion

Moving and inspiring; this groundbreaking book is the story of father and son overcoming the broken bond of trust and love. Sam Keen, a most trusted voice in our culture for 50 years, and his son Gifford, equally strong and compelling, show a way through struggle and radical honesty that allows fathers and sons to overcome long-festering estrangement and become the best of friends.

Linda Carroll, author of Love Cycles

Sam and Gifford Keen embody the redemptive power of honest storytelling in their extraordinarily revealing book Prodigal Father, Wayward Son. This father/son relationship is transformed by telling many stories beyond the damaging ones that have kept them apart. The message of this book moves beyond fathers and sons to any intimate relationship that is controlled by a handful of old myths.

Herbert Anderson, coauthor of Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals and coauthor (with Karen Speerstra) of The Divine Art of Dying

T.S. Eliot writes that We shall not cease from exploration, and at the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time. Gifford and Sam Keens book Prodigal Father, Wayward Son lays out in raw, intensely honest form, through a sharing of letters, the story of their reconciliation. To be a witness to their own knowing that place of forgiveness, acceptance, and love gives hope that it is never too late to make up and (re)birth a parent/child relationship.

Lee Rush, trainer and consultant, International Institute for Restorative Practices and member, International Mankind Project

A very brave book about healing. It movingly portrays the very words and process of reconciliation between a father and a son: The courageous voicing and healing of old wounds and deep shame. Underneath that, they discover the deeper love that was always there, but thwarted. You cant read this book without wishing it could happen in your own family. Of course it can. May this book inspire healing and the rediscovery of love in our families, communities, and the world. We sure need it.

Glen Schneider, author of Ten Breaths to Happiness

In their simply yet elegantly told story, the Keens have laid bare the inevitable struggles of fathers and sons. It is a book rich with compelling and engaging anecdotes that reveal male foolishness, abuses of power, and repeated rejections halted only by a painfully awkward but inspiring and insightful pursuit of reconciliation.

Bill Jersey, film producer/Peabody Award winner

Published by DIVINE ARTS

DivineArtsMedia.com

An imprint of Michael Wiese Productions

12400 Ventura Blvd. #1111

Studio City, CA 91604

(818) 379-8799, (818) 986-3408 (Fax)

www.mwp.com

Cover design by Johnny Ink. johnnyink.com

Copyediting by Ross Plotkin

Book design by Debbie Berne

Copyright 2015 by Sam Keen and Gifford Keen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

ISBN: 978-1-61125-038-1

Keen, Sam.

Prodigal Father, Wayward Son: A Roadmap to Reconciliation / Sam Keen and Gifford Keen.

pages cm.

1. Keen, Sam. 2. Keen, Gifford, 1960 3. Fathers and sons. 4. Interpersonal conflict. 5. Reconciliation. I. Keen, Gifford, 1960- II. Title.

HQ755.85.K443 2015

306.874'2--dc23

2014030967

Contents

T his book is composed primarily of a series of stories told by a father and son to each other. Many of them are very personal and describe some of our most painful and tender memories. They are the pivotal stories that shaped our relationship and informed our characters as fathers, sons, and men.

But it is not only an account of how we rediscovered each other; it also illustrates a powerful process that can help other fathers and sons reconcile.

Some fathers and sons have horrific histories of alcoholism or abuse. But far more often, the wounds between fathers and sons are subtler. Ours is an all-too-common account of an absent father, alienated from his family by career and divorce, and a neglected, resentful son still longing for the affection of his father long after reaching manhood.

For decades we didnt get along. We loved each other, but we didnt like each other. Most of the time, it wasnt much fun to be together. Simple conversations could escalate into angry arguments in seconds. We couldnt get past our old wounds and forgive each other no matter how much we wanted to or how hard we tried. With Sam approaching eighty and Gifford past fifty with a family of his own, it began to seem unlikely that we would ever make peace.

Then, two years ago, driven by a particularly bitter fight, we took a chance and began to exchange a series of letters in which we explored the roots of our conflicts. We journeyed back in time and space, searching out long-forgotten, often painful memories, and soon discovered that each of us had a small handful of anecdotes that came up over and over and seemed emotionally charged out of proportion to their content.

We began asking our male friends for stories about their fathers, and were amazed to find this phenomenon was universal. The stories themselves differed wildly some were more positive and pleasant, others, far more horrifying than anything wed experienced. But in every case, each mans relationship to his father was, in a fundamental way, defined by no more than half a dozen stories.

When we took the time to write our handful of stories and share them with each other, it became shockingly clear that those memories, so strongly preserved for so many years, had become the lenses through which we unconsciously interpreted all of our interactions. We realized these few stories were the root cause of the animosities we were unable to overcome.

Once these myths were examined in the light of day, they began to lose their power. It was as if a dam in the river of remembrance had broken. The grey impressions of the past were swept away, and hundreds of new memories that had long been repressed came tumbling forward, spilling into our minds, and filling our relationship with light, color, and compassion.