from Knots
R. D. Laing
1
They are playing a game. They are playing at not
playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I
shall break the rules and they will punish me.
I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.
They are not having fun.
I can’t have fun if they don’t.
If I get them to have fun, then I can have fun with them.
Getting them to have fun, is not fun. It is hard work.
I might get fun out of finding out why they’re not
I’m not supposed to get fun out of working out why
they’re not.
But there is even some fun in pretending to them I’m not having fun finding out why they’re not.
A little girl comes along and says: let’s have fun.
But having fun is a waste of time, because it doesn’t
help to figure out why they’re not having fun.
How dare you have fun when Christ died on the Cross
for you! Was He having fun?
It is our duty to bring up our children to love,
honour and obey us.
If they don’t, they must be punished,
otherwise we would not be doing our duty.
If they grow up to love, honour and obey us
we have been blessed for bringing them up properly.
If they grow up not to love, honour and obey us
either we have brought them up properly
or we have not:
if we have
there must be something the matter with them;
if we have not
there is something the matter with us.
❤️
Shoulders
Naomi Shihab Nye
A man crosses the street in rain,
stepping gently, looking two times north and south,
because his son is asleep on his shoulder.
No car must splash him.
No car drive too near to his shadow.
This man carries the world’s most sensitive cargo
but he’s not marked.
Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,
HANDLE WITH CARE.
His ear fills up with breathing.
He hears the hum of a boy’s dream
deep inside him.
We’re not going to be able
to live in this world
if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing
with one another.
The road will only be wide.
The rain will never stop falling.
