Monday 8 July 2013

Sunday, July 7th, 2013

Parents at the Park

Montreal, Quebec

It happened that on this 2nd day at Jeanne Mence Park that I met interested parents. It was also day 2 for our dramatical performance of Gita: Concise which was so rewarding, but it was parents that occupied my mind's attention at the end of the day. If I was to use the word concerned parents of new recruits, I might be misleading. We're not talking about anxious parents involving their child joining a cult.

In two cases a mom and dad who reared their child, now an adult, in Catholicism, were not so concerned about the young woman's apparent conversion. They were "cool" about her chosen lifestyle in Krishna Consciousness. More than anything they were satisfied about her happiness and they warmly and forwardly expressed that to me. With the 2nd family that approached me, the dad had nothing but praise to give to Gita: Concise after seeing it and he was happy that his son has been engaging his musical talents in the service of Krishna as of late. With his son being in his early 20s he did voice a wish for him to put his guitar down sometimes and plan some anchoring or rooting in his life. That's a valid wish. It's great that parents care. The father wanted to share some of his plans with me for a family business. I was honoured to be let in on it.

The third set of parents who raised their daughter in the Krishna Vaishnava tradition, simply wanted to be assured of their daughter's safety and protection while on a planned one week spiritual youth retreat conducted later this month. I'm one of the facilitators. That's a natural sentiment coming from them. Nowadays I am in a position where I'm older than the parents. It makes me feel a little older but not necessarily wiser. However, I do share the same sentiment towards young folks getting settled and protected.

My heart goes out to the generations.

7 KM

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