My grandmother sent this to me from her Irish Jesuit prayer site.
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Children are deprived not because we do not give them things, but because we do not sufficiently value what they give us. We need to be alert to
welcome what children have to offer.
You remember how Kahlil Gibran wrote about children,
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.
Our children are flying forward into areas we have not charted ourselves. What is asked of us is in Kahlil’s last phrase, ‘Even as the Archer loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.’ We are expected to be calm, reliable, showing a steady love in our own lives, and to offer our children what Jesus offered: time, love, stability, and a readiness to bless.
