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"You are the bows..." | On Children

My Dad told me, some years ago, that he sees his role as a father very much in the way Kahlil Gibran explains in "The Prophet," "On Children." This is everything I need as a daughter - and everything I could give to my children.

"On children" by Kahlil Gibran

An Excerpt from "The Prophet"

And a woman who held a babe against her

bosom said, Speak to us of Children.

And he said:

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 your 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.

Photo credit: Zoltan Tasi on unsplash

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