Meeting More Than Halfway

One of my favorite movies is “The Chosen”, based on the book by Chaim Potok, and although the movie is about many things, one of the themes is the conflict between a father and son who are no longer speaking to one another.

At the end of the movie, an announcer, the voice over, tells a story about a king whose son has left and isn’t talking to his father, the king anymore, and after a while of no resolution to this, the king sends a man, a messenger, to reach out to his son.

And the message is “Come back as far as you can, and I will meet you the rest of the way.”

I think this is a wonderful parable about how to do more than just meeting in the middle with someone. Sometimes when we are not speaking to someone, we’re waiting for them to come back halfway, and I think the story is an excellent solution to that. Offer to the other person that they should come back as far as they can and meet them the rest of the way.