Children, Parents, Teachers

If you haven't read Summerhill by A. S. Neill, I suggest you read it as soon as possible. This is an excerpt from Kahlil Gibran's forward in Summerhill.

Your children are not your own.
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 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.
.......
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.

Kahlil Gibran

The Six Mistakes of Man

Wayne Dyer has inspired me a lot lately with his commentary in Wisdom of the Ages. I had to add this wisdom from 2000 years ago. It is amazing how we accuse others of being "old-fashioned" and yet, we still suffer from the same bad habits. Have a read...

The Six Mistakes of Man

~The illusion that personal gain is made up of the crushing of others.
~The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.
~Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it.
~Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.
~Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and study.
~Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.

Marcus Tullius Cicero
(106 B.C-43 B.C.)
Roman statesman and man of letters, Cicero was Rome’s greatest orator and its most articulate philosopher. The last years of republican Rome are othen referred to as the Age of Cicero.

Gingerbread or Apple pie; still get crumbs 

Individuality

E. E. Cummings has inspired me this week with this mustard seed of hope. Have a read...

here is little Effie's head
whose brains are made of gingerbread
when the judgment day comes
God will find six crumbs

stooping by the coffinlid
waiting for something to rise
as the other somethings did--
you imagine His surprise

bellowing through the general noise
Where is Effie who was dead?
--to God in a tiny voice,
I am may the first crumb said

whereupon its fellow five
crumbs chuckled as if they were alive
and number two took up the song,
might i'm called and did no wrong

cried the third crumb, I am should
and this is my little sister could
with our big brother who is would
don't punish us for we were good;

and the last crumb, with some shame
whispered unto God, my name
is must and with the others i've
been Effie who isn't alive

just imagine it I say
God amid a monstrous din
watch your step and follow me
stooping by Effie's little, in

(want a match or can you see?)
which the six subjunctive crumbs
twitch like mutilated thumbs:
picture His peering biggest whey

coloured face on which a frown
puzzles, but I know the way--
(nervously Whose eyes approve
the blessed while His ears are
crammed

with the strenuous music of
the innumberable capering damned)
--staring wildly up and down
the here we are now judgment day

cross the threshold have no dread
lift the sheet back in this way.
here is little Effie's head
whose brains are made of gingerbread.