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 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 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.
—“On Children” by Kahlil Gibran, as interpreted by Sweet Honey in the Rock
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I have learned many lessons from watching my mom, and from long, involved, sometimes serious, sometimes hysterically giggling conversations. And. I have in some ways had the honor and challenge of raising her as much as she has raised me. Through those same conversations. Through sharing music and movies and books and ritual. And now, through sharing excitement and wonder and plain wondering about the state of the world and our country.
I’ve written a little in this blog about how excited I am to watch the enthusiasm of the young people in my life as the Obama campaign, and now Presidency, has begun to unfold.
And now I am just as thrilled to watch my mother rediscover something in herself long ago put aside. But rather than describe what I have seen happening, I will let her speak for herself…following is the email my mom sent out to friends and colleagues after I told her about President Elect Obama’s www.change.gov. May we all continue to inspire each other, one generation to another.
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http://www.change.gov/learn/transition/
Dear Friends –
A half hour ago I picked up a phone message from my daughter Laurie, telling me to click on the link above, and then call her. I did both – and could say little when we spoke, other than to say, “I’m stunned” over and over again.
Like the President-elect, I started out in the working world as a community organizer, hired in 1980 into one of the few remaining job slots open under the then-expiring Federal jobs program. I was a newly-minted single mom with no work experience outside the home since a summer job in high school. Over 25 years I learned about power, partnership, voice, collective wisdom and strength, incremental and transformational change, from a legion of Neighborhood Watch volunteers, food pantry users and operators, elected officials and their aides, journalists and TV reporters, not-for-profit employees and board members, executives and middle managers and workers, and all manner of people wanting to make a difference and willing to participate in civic life.
Visiting the Transition Team website – a US government website – I felt like Rip Van Winkle: it seems like a 100 years since there was an opportunity for civil conversation, critical thinking, and creativity in the public arena. Certainly more than 40 years since I’ve heard any kind of call to service in civic life.
Whatever your political persuasion, please click on the link, and consider how you want to make your views and vision known to our President-elect’s Transition Team. This website is an amazing declaration of transparency in process.
Warmly,
Sara
http://www.ruscombe.org/alternativehealthpractitioners/seisenberg.html
Apropos of Something 