Excerpted with permission from Voices of Insight, Shambhala Publications . Parenting is a labor of love. It's a path of service and surrender and, like the practice of a Buddha or a bodhisattva, it demands patience and understanding and tremendous sacrifice. It is also a way to reconnect with the mystery of life and to reconnect with ourselves.
Young children have that sense of mystery.
When she turned seven, my daughter Caroline had reached that age when the sense of mystery was getting fainter. My friends told me. Besides which, I don't see how he could fit down our chimney. He's too big. She was beginning to trade in the mystery of things for concrete explanations.