Give and Take

Convention usually says we may adopt much of ourselves after our parents, but the reverse is also true. Much of our parent we may struggle to avoid copying, often with less success that we might have hoped. Much I have learned in my adult life, I have learned from my mature children as they accepted the inevitability of the template we provided and struggled and succeeded, or failed, to separate from it. I have learned as much observing the arrows as they have from the bow.As I have watched our grandchildren move from under the shadow of their parents, I see the repeated sequence again. What goes around comes around! The blessing of children is, in time, both give and take but always a blessing! Psalm 127, which we sang today and which has occasioned this post, as Remembrance day approaches,the psalmist sings,
Children are a heritage from the Holy One
the fruit of the womb,a gift from God.
Children born in one's youth
are like arrows in a warrior's hands

Happy are those
who fill their quivers with them;
they shall not be shamed
when they talk to enemies in the gate