I still love this quote, especially the part about parents being bows and the children being arrows going to where the parents can never reach.
We prepare our children with what we know from our past and present. This is what we give them as equipment to enter a future we can't imagine.
We need to be kind, resilient, flexible and creative as we allow and encourage them to discover, trust and use their gifts and talents, whether we understand or not. It's the way it's always been.
I think this task is only done well because so much love is present.
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)
Source: The Prophet: 26 poetic essays, Pages: 17-18 (complete text of The Prophet is on the Cornell University link )
We need to be kind, resilient, flexible and creative as we allow and encourage them to discover, trust and use their gifts and talents, whether we understand or not. It's the way it's always been.
I think this task is only done well because so much love is present.
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931)
Source: The Prophet: 26 poetic essays, Pages: 17-18 (complete text of The Prophet is on the Cornell University link )
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