Last week, a couple of Younger Group children came up to me and excitedly reported how we are all just made up of star particles! This cosmically-aware statement struck me. I marveled at their joyful discovery of their place in the greater realm of existence! The children inspire me daily to think about the big picture, even as they are completely absorbed in their child-sized worlds.  People who work with children as teachers, and people who raise them as parents and guardians are so lucky to have their presence in our lives. I love teaching at a school that celebrates childhood every day.

I'd like to pair these thoughts with a passage from one of my favorite writers: 

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.

Khalil Gibran, The Prophet