Your Children Are Not Your Children

I have a short break in a busy day to share a favorite song of mine. It is a version of Khalil Gibran's poem, On Children, and the first moment I heard it - it stopped me dead in my tracks. Not only is it hauntingly beautiful, but its message is one that is true in the most divine sense.

Click here for a link to the song courtesy Ritualwell.org (Music by Ysaye M. Barnwell, © 1980 Barnwell’s Notes Publishing; recorded by Sweet Honey In The Rock® on “Selections.” Used by permission of the composer.) The text of the song is below. I hope you enjoy it.

Your children are not your children
They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself
They come through you but they are not from you and though they are with you
They belong not to you

You can give them your love but not your thoughts
They have their own thoughts

You can house their bodies but not their souls
For their souls dwell in a place of tomorrow
Which you cannot visit not even in your dreams
You can strive to be like them
But you cannot make them just like you

Strive to be like them
But you cannot make them just like you