httP://www.geocities.com/Athens/5484/Gib04.htm
Write a 1 page reaction to Kahlil Gibran’s poem, “On Children” from The Prophet, 1923.
Answer the following questions in your essay:
What is Gibran’s philosophy on parenthood?
On what points do you agree with Gibran?
On what points do you disagree?
Do you think your opinions are influenced by where you are in your own life experience, ie if you are a parent or if you are a child?
Who is the archer?
Chapters 10 and 11 in the Cherlin text should be useful to you.
Children
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 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.
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.
Adapted from Andrew J. Cherlin, Anne Smith Hastings and Bahira Sherif
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