What To Tell The Children

Each generation truly comes into this world naked in both body and mind. Do we really pass on the wisdom the young will need to cope with life that is fraught with far more danger than we let on?

When my young,
ever so young,
asked,  'Daddy,
why did that man
shoot all those kids?'
I knew no answer.
Do I show them
the nightly news
of murder and its
ugly sister, mayhem?
Or do I protect their
sweetness by hiding
the world from them?

When I was a child,
the world lay lightly
on our shoulders--
we were free, free
to ride our bikes
and free to fly
in both dreams
and daydreams.
Strangers were
not dangers, and
the big policeman
was our friend.
TV was often silly
but harmless, soft,
and we went to
school to learn.
Yes, yes there was
the 'Bomb' and
we knew that
at an early age--
but what child
can imagine a
nuclear holocaust,
or what adult
for that matter?

Today kids may
still be free in
endless play,
but too soon
the world so
cruelly steals
their childhood,
and leaves them
adult in their
fears but still
childlike in mind.

It is one thing for
me to know now,
as the writer said,
that history is just
a nightmare from
which I have not
yet awakened, but
why must a child
have to see such
hard truth so soon?

So I told my children
what I learned as a
young and vain man
when my life was
nearly lost in one
of life's rivers and
how I was shown 
other worlds exist
and each of us can
never really die,
but journey for a
time in a place and
a body until the
time comes for a
new place and a
different form: for
we exist always I
told them, without
beginning or end,
so everything we do,
think, and feel has
boundless meaning.

Some souls, I gently
told them, will do
bad things in life,
and yes, good kids
may sometimes die,
but evil cannot harm
a soul, unless sought
and darkness chosen
over heaven's light.

'All you must do,
my children, is
simply seek God.'
'And how do
we do that'
they wondered.
So I told them how
very simple it was--
just love, children,
just love....