A movie - VERY loosely based on the New Testament story: 'The Prodigal.'

This Introduction is followed by 7 chapters, episodes in the lives of people who move away, squander their resources - their life, and then wonder if they should or even can return and somehow start again. Is that even a possibility?

Will there be acceptance and welcome back where we came from?

_{Click on each chapter link to the following:}

Chapter 1 - Home Fires  Many people grow up in a relatively stable, safe and well-provided-for environment. Loving care is evident and the necessities - and more, of life are abundant.  But family life is very fragile:  homes are where both good things and bad can and do happen.

Chapter 2 -  Look at Me!   There is such a thing as a healthy ego. Life would be bereft without it. But often we,  from our earliest years, do things, act out, simply because we feel the need for more and more attention. We want to be validated by others. That's not all bad - can be very goo;, but it can often also be less than helpful in finding and developing our true identity, our vocation and place in life.  A fulfilling life means that we find our gift - and give it away.

Chapter 3 - The Flood   This is a world in which good things and bad can and do happen. One is not always prepared. No, we are never really prepared when evil and disaster ascend upon us, as from the Abyss. There may be hope, promise, delivery - a future, but we do not sense or know it yet.

Chapter 4 - Leaving Home   We leave the home of our upbringing sooner or later, for all kinds of reasons. We leave and cleave and weave, which is our Creator's intent. Yet this can be a difficult time, leaving scars and stress marks, both for those who leave and those who remain behind.

Chapter 5 - Far Country: The Good Times   Having left home, we find ourselves in new surroundings, with many new thrills, expectations and challenges.

Chapter 6 - Far Country: The Not So Good Times   Life's opportunities and resources can be squandered. The so-called good times of life seldom last - and sometimes, perhaps often, we are left with squalour, with ashes instead of beauty.

Chapter 7 - Coming Home   'Coming Home' is a metaphor for all kinds of situations, as well as being, literally, a return to the house, town or country of our birth, our upbringing. In the spiritual realm, it is coming home to God our Creator: our Heavenly Father, as Jesus put it. Repentance, return, restoration and release are here inherent. And one sings as a bird -- a soul set free.

^{Music: Andy Stark of StarkSound and Saltspring Studios wrote most of the score.
Album Art by SpaDogs.}