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, 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 you dreams.

You may stive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward not tarries with yesterday.

 

You are the bow which you 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 you 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.

 

I ran across the writing above in some papers that I had stored away in a box.

The paper did not have an arthurs name on it.

If you know who the arthur is, please email me & let me know,

so that I can give them credit for their work.

 

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