Beloved Friends,
Inside the pages of a fable-like poetry collection called, The Prophet, written in 1923 by Kahil Gibran, are words of his poem On Children. I have memorized the words, sung them for years and written them on my heart, thanks to the musical setting offered years later by Sweet Honey in the Rock.
While most will read the poem (provided below), as a commissioning to parents and a reminder that our children are not our possessions but rather given to us as gifts for a time to love and care for, and, if we are willing, to learn from. And while as a parent I take these words very personally, today I am using them to frame an invitation, a dream and a prayer come true for us as a community of faith.
When I arrived six years ago, I was sad that more families with young children had not found our beautiful community. Today, that has changed. Each Sunday we have more and more children finding their way to us along with their courageous parents, caregivers, and adult friends. It is our absolute honor to welcome them and to continue to work together to finds ways to integrate and care for the youngest among us.
To that end I want to share 3 developments:
- Starting this Sunday you will see we have a bigger and hopefully, better placed Soft Space. We hope this is a comfortable and better way to have our children with us during the service.
- We have resumed our search for a Sunday Nursery attendant and hope to have news of a new hire soon.
- We have begun dreaming about a more structured children’s program that could take place during the first half of our service and then inviting our children back into the sanctuary to receive communion with us.
If you would like to be a part of any of this work/conversations, please reach out to me directly at lisa@trinitytoledo.org.
Finally, when our daughter was just learning to walk we remember taking her to church full of trepidation and worried as new parents that she would be too loud, or run around too much, or just cause us to be uncomfortable. Now, over 20 years later what one person said to us when we arrived that morning has stayed with us all these years. She came right up to us on our first Sunday and said, “I see you have a beautiful daughter. We are so glad you were brave enough to all come together. Please know that when she walks or runs through these doors with you, she immediately has an entire community of adults who will take responsibility for making her feel safe, welcome and at home.” We have never forgotten those words of comfort and relief, and it was the church that changed our lives as a family. My prayer is that together we too will be THAT church!
May it be so.
Lisa
On Children, Kahil Gibran
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.