Kahlil Gibran - On Children

On Children

Kahlil Gibran

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.

For our lovely Sister Maliha of the wonderful Lightness of Being blog, and Yusuf, her beautiful new baby boy, Alhamdulillah! May Allah bless her and her new baby, her handsome loving husband, and Yusuf’s adorable older brother Sufyan. Go HERE and read about it.

And with thanks to The Stumbling Mystic blog for the Gibran poem.

Ya Haqq!

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