Saturday 18th April, I overslept and woke up not feeling too well and a little sorry for myself. It was a slow morning and I tried to just rest, lie in bed and read and calm my mind. My thoughts kept drifting to my son and my friends and family and wandering how everyone is really feeling and coping. I did my meditation practice a lot later than usual and felt drawn to read “The Prophet”, by Kahlil Gibran. The following chapter held my attention:
“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.”
Not Knowing
Interesting, how we do everything in our power to give our children everything of the best and make them happy and sometimes forget that they are only ours for a relatively short space of time. We want to ease their lives and we don’t want them to suffer or be in pain and so we try and control this but it’s just not possible. As much as we think we are in control of our lives and our children’s lives, we really are not – Covid 19 has made that glaringly obvious. Not being in control and not being able to fix things is a disturbing thought – We just don’t know what will happen.
– When will we get this virus under control?
– How many more people will die?
– Is it going to get much worse for us here in SA?
– How are we going to recover from this?
– Are our jobs at risk?
– Is my child coping?
– Will we remain safe?
– What happens after the 30th April?
Pema Chodron, an American Buddhist monk talks of this:
“A warrior accepts that we can never know what will happen to us next. We can try to control the uncontrollable by looking for security and predictability, always hoping to be comfortable and safe. But the truth is that we can never avoid uncertainty. This not knowing is part of the adventure, and it’s also what makes us afraid.”
“When we think that something is going to bring us pleasure, we don’t know what’s really going to happen. When we think something is going to give us misery, we don’t know. Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. We try to do what we think is going to help. But we don’t know. We never know if we’re going to fall flat or sit up tall. When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don’t know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don’t know.”
Chat tomorrow and stay well, Eva
18th April 2020
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