Bless This Child

A Treasury of Poems, Quotations, and Readings to Celebrate Birth

Dear Reader,

A child comes into our world already formed and unique, an individual with an innate personality and latent abilities. This new child carries our collective hope for something more than the mere continuity of life.

Inevitably, we hope that the light that burns in us will burn more brightly in our children. We hope that each child will contribute to the progress of society, and in turn, that our society will be worthy of its children. We hope that each child will be personally fulfilled throughout the unfolding life that lies ahead.

This treasury of prose, poems, blessings, and readings gives voice to the many hopes and wishes that accompany the arrival of a new child. Culled from antiquity and from our contemporary world, written and spoken by parents, priests, and poets--the famous and the unknown--these passages are meant to inspire, to caution, and to shore us up for the great responsibility we have to care and nurture all children.

There is no more inspiring aspect of the human condition than children, to whom this little book is dedicated.

Wishing you hope and joy,

Edward Searl