Today's Meditation:

What can we do for children?  Is providing food, shelter and clothing enough for these young human beings whom we've brought into the world, or is there more that we can give them, more that we need to give them so that they can thrive and learn and grow?

Of course there's more.  We can give them love--we can share our love by encouraging them, we can model love in the ways that we deal with others.  We can show them what it means to be loving and caring people only by actually being loving and caring people, and then they'll see that there is room for love and caring in this world.

Kids learn much more out of school than they do within the often-stifling walls of the classroom.  Far too often, they learn about hatred and avarice and greed and jealousy and other awful things that human beings tend to focus on so often.  But can we teach them about love by modeling love?  And if we can do so, what may the results be in the lives of our children when they grow up and become adults themselves?

Children are living and learning all the time, while we as adults often have stopped doing both.  If we continue to do both, though, we can help ourselves by maintaining that childlike vigor and sense of wonder, and we can help the children in our lives by modeling a beautiful way of living--living a life of love for all, always.

Questions to consider:

What do the words "more living than grown-up people" mean to you?

What kinds of lessons do you see children typically learning?

How might we model love for children?  What are some very specific ways of doing so?

For further thought:

Let us put our minds together and see
what we will make for our children.

Chief Sitting Bull

Today's quotation:

Children are living beings--more living than grown-up people who have built shells of habit around themselves.  Therefore it is absolutely necessary for their mental health and development that they should not have mere schools for their lessons, but a world whose guiding spirit is personal love.

Rabindranath Tagore

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