Today I shed tears of joy, of pain, of respect and love for the children, these emerging empowered young adults who are demanding, who are not wavering, who are pure in their knowledge and are emboldened to tell their truth. Without blame, without violence, without hesitation they expressed a unity, a hope for democracy and a demand for change. I found myself singing one of my favorite songs from Sweet Honey in the Rock, it is taken from a poem by Kahil Gibran. Please take a moment if you would like and listen to On Children and below are the words from the song not the entire Gibran poem.
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.
Their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow. My favorite line in the poem and in the song. So many children telling the truth of the violence that they live with everyday. Today was not about school shootings, today was about an institutional march that has nurtured violence in our neighborhoods, put weapons of war on the streets, bred inequality across race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and class. Today it was the children that said NO MORE we are equal we are together the NRA is not going to be in charge anymore. Children Marching for OUR lives. All our lives.
I love that these students feel empowered. They know their truth. They know what is happening in their neighborhoods, in their schools, in their country. Now we all need to remember these stories, to make sure that they are not silenced. We get to vote, to listen, to act in our neighborhoods, in our communities. What a day, " I want to not worry about dying, I want to focus on math and playing basketball with my friends" , "I learned to duck from bullets before I learned how to read", "gun violence is normal" this is their reality, it is our reality no matter where we live we cannot escape the reality of our country but we can make change happen. Is today the moment where the anger is channeled for positive change. To not settle, to not back down, to bring our country to another moment of making a more perfect union.
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.
Their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow. My favorite line in the poem and in the song. So many children telling the truth of the violence that they live with everyday. Today was not about school shootings, today was about an institutional march that has nurtured violence in our neighborhoods, put weapons of war on the streets, bred inequality across race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and class. Today it was the children that said NO MORE we are equal we are together the NRA is not going to be in charge anymore. Children Marching for OUR lives. All our lives.
I love that these students feel empowered. They know their truth. They know what is happening in their neighborhoods, in their schools, in their country. Now we all need to remember these stories, to make sure that they are not silenced. We get to vote, to listen, to act in our neighborhoods, in our communities. What a day, " I want to not worry about dying, I want to focus on math and playing basketball with my friends" , "I learned to duck from bullets before I learned how to read", "gun violence is normal" this is their reality, it is our reality no matter where we live we cannot escape the reality of our country but we can make change happen. Is today the moment where the anger is channeled for positive change. To not settle, to not back down, to bring our country to another moment of making a more perfect union.
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Thanks
Sue