Your children

Your children are not your children.


They are sons and daughters

Of the call of Life to itself.

They come through you but not from you.

And, although they are with you,

They don't belong to you.


You can give them your love

But not your thoughts

Because they have their own thoughts.

You can welcome their bodies

But not their souls

Because their souls live in the house of tomorrow

Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You can strive to be like them

But don't try to make them like you

Because life doesn't go backwards,

Nor dwell on yesterday.


You are the bows by which your children

Like living arrows are thrown.

The Archer sees the goal on the path to infinity

And He extends His power to you so that His arrows

Can fly fast and far.

Let your tension by the hand of the Archer

Or for joy

For just as he loves the arrow that flies

He likes the bow which is stable.


Khalil Gibran


www.espacehogan.ch