Maxima Debetur Puero Reverentia: revere the child first

Children reset priorities, rework personalities, rekindle our patient love. With them, we revisit-rediscover-reorganize ourselves; remake-repeat-retrace-review-reorient-redirect our journey. They reinstate Life, readjust the moment, reappraise our world-view. In an instant, they make the rich/strong/pretty/famous feel like ogres. And with a look that's a pageant, they crown the ugliest/dirtiest/oldest Momma, Miss Universe.

Their cries are their Bill of Rights. And their smiles set us free. With playful make-believe, they make Believers out of us all. To giggle and laugh at - and with - Life is to live and celebrate it, they say.

Yes, our children 'Again lead us forward,' indeed, reproduce us - IF we'll only let them so do. And if we don't - there's always a 10-Point Misery Program Hot Line somewhere for us to call. When kids rebel, do drugs, or, violently take-off, it's WYDYWIG - what you do is what you get.

When they were around, were you? Or, dazed, tired, angry, afraid, confused, tense, depressed, too busy paying rent/bills/taxes, you put on a phony cheerfulness even as you stole from their cookie jar/piggy-bank, which, to the late astronomer Carl Sagan, looked from a distance like a Pale Blue Dot?

The real Doing Question is one of attitude. Nothing less than an attitude of active reverence will pass muster. Active, so you'll roll up your sleeves to attend, anticipate, advantage, alleviate, and activate the condition of these Divine Diviners.

Love the trees and the animals, yes. But revere the lives of your Reproducers, your children.

MAXIMA DEBETUR PUERO REVERENTIA. A Latin saying, meaning, 'Revere the child first.'

Sent by Vyom Oct 2001 as a note to the New Year's Story, "Chants of Deliverance." This is my second post to Vyom's blog since he, in his words, "changed phase" five days ago.