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.
- Kahlil Gibran
“Pardon, my lord!
As you live, my lord,
I am the woman who stood near you here, praying to the LORD.
I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request.
Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD;
as long as he lives, he shall be dedicated to the LORD.”
She left Samuel there.
- Hannah to Eli, 1 Samuel 1:26-28
This story is from the first book of Samuel, one I know well. It is read as what is called the “Haftarah” portion during the Jewish high holiday service of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year). It follows the reading from the Torah during the service. The story focuses on the character of Hannah. She is one of the wives of a man named Elkanah. While the other wives are blessed with many children, Hannah has none. It causes her great heartache. Each year the family goes to worship in Shiloh where the tabernacle housing the tablets of the Ten Commandments is located. Hannah is ridiculed by the other wives and filled with grief she finds her way into the temple to pray for a change to her fortune. There Eli, the priest, mistakes her for being drunk, or crazy and compels her to give up her sinful ways.
Hannah explains to Eli her plight and Eli blesses her and assures her that she will have a child. Hannah does in fact conceive and returns to Shiloh to offer her son, Samuel, to God through Eli. Samuel, of course, grows to be the first and perhaps the greatest of Israel’s prophets. It will be he who guides Saul and David as the first kings of Israel. He is the instrument who God direct to choose David as king.
None of this could have happened had not Hannah gave her son to God when she presented him as an infant to Eli in Shiloh. How easy it would have been for Hannah to go back on her vow and kept Samuel as her own. After all, how long had she waited for this son. How she must have wanted to do a “touchdown dance” around Elkanah’s wives after giving birth. A definite opportunity for an “in your face” moment. But she did not elect this path. Why?
The writer, Andrew Solomon, says that we do not reproduce our children but we instead PRODUCE them. That our children are not copies of ourselves, nor are they extensions of ourselves. Sort of a means of getting things right to offset the wrongs that we perceive in ourselves. No, he contends, children are individuals with their own DNA. They will go on to do great things and not so great things. But the world will know them for who they are, and not who they came from. We will be long gone but “…their souls will dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.”
Hannah said yes to giving up her child, the product of a miraculous pregnancy. Mary also said “yes” to receiving God into her womb. Another miraculous pregnancy. She also could have held on to Jesus, not wanting to let this miracle go out of her life. To protect him from the world. But instead she said a second “yes” to God. Yes to letting Jesus go…to go on to his ministry and to his death and resurrection. And the salvation of the world.
My eldest daughter lives in Senegal, West Africa. She moved there about a year ago. At the time she left last year, our relationship had been not ideal. Somewhat confrontational. But we had a bit of a thaw a couple of weeks before she left. Before she left, we asked her what she wanted for Christmas and she said she wanted us to visit her in Senegal. Which we did last April. The transformation was incredible. She was a mature woman who had developed relationships with amazing people who were VERY different from what my wife and I were familiar with. But she had obviously blossomed into an incredible person. She was no longer under our roof but was instead under God’s roof.
It is so easy for us as parents to hold on. Either because we cannot bear a life without our children close by, or we want to dictate the direction of their lives. But, in fact, they are not our own. God allows us to have time with them, impart a bit of our knowledge and experience but, in the end, they belong to the world and to God. Through our children we see a bit of a reflection of God’s love. Hannah’s love allowed her to give Samuel to Eli, to God and to the people of Israel. Mary’s love saved the world. May God give us the wisdom as parents to guide but not direct, to advise but not to dictate and to love as to love with all our souls.
Merry Christmas to all A Catholic Moment’s readers and to my fellow writers. May you and your families have a blessed season.
