It was in those excrutiating teenage years, in standard 6 to be exact, at the age of 12, that a friend gave me a card with words by Khalil Gibran. I remember the exact moment, we were on the sportfield outside the boarding house, the trees seemed to exhale with a deliberate movement, the world went bright and soft and acutey green to my eyes.
I then found The Prophet, a book of which I have given away more copies than I can count. His poems and stories move me and I am so priviledged to have loved him for more than 30 years. It is so true what they say about books being like like best friends. As you get older, you love them more, and the same story or poem or saying resonates in a different way as one walks further down the path of life. They also remind you of certain times, as songs do.
As the saying goes, 'no man crosses the same river twice'. I am proud to report that I wrote that on the whiteboard last week and had the students interpret and explain and think and debate through the layers, until they got it.
So, now for The Pearl, a major milestone on my path of healing after Hester's death, and always a light in times of discomfort.
Said one oyster to a neighbouring oyster, 'I have a great pain within me, it is heavy and round and I am in distress.'
And the other oyster replied with haughty complacence, 'Praise be to the heavens and to the sea, I have no pain inside of me. I am well and whole, within and without.'
At that moment a crab was passing by and heard the two oysters, and he said to the one who was well and whole both within and without,
'Yes, you are well and whole, but the pain your neighbour bears is a pearl of exceeding beauty'.
KAHLIL GIBRAN
I then found The Prophet, a book of which I have given away more copies than I can count. His poems and stories move me and I am so priviledged to have loved him for more than 30 years. It is so true what they say about books being like like best friends. As you get older, you love them more, and the same story or poem or saying resonates in a different way as one walks further down the path of life. They also remind you of certain times, as songs do.
As the saying goes, 'no man crosses the same river twice'. I am proud to report that I wrote that on the whiteboard last week and had the students interpret and explain and think and debate through the layers, until they got it.
So, now for The Pearl, a major milestone on my path of healing after Hester's death, and always a light in times of discomfort.
Said one oyster to a neighbouring oyster, 'I have a great pain within me, it is heavy and round and I am in distress.'
And the other oyster replied with haughty complacence, 'Praise be to the heavens and to the sea, I have no pain inside of me. I am well and whole, within and without.'
At that moment a crab was passing by and heard the two oysters, and he said to the one who was well and whole both within and without,
'Yes, you are well and whole, but the pain your neighbour bears is a pearl of exceeding beauty'.
KAHLIL GIBRAN
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