an excerpt from The Prophet for mother's day

One of my favorite gifts this Mother's Day came from my husband....a beautiful copy of THE PROPHET by Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931).

I had heard of this book for years. Though I never knew anything about it specifically, I did know that I wanted to read it someday. Now, this treasured gift has been in my hands for less than a week, and I am already reading it through for a second time!

With my apologies to the author, and with my humble encouragement to others to read this beautiful book in its entirety, here is a selection that seemed so appropriate for Mother's Day:

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 to-
morrow, 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 chil-
dren 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.


May we all, each of us in our own way, mother or father or neither one, be stable bows in the life of a child....