Resumo de Thoughts And Meditations

?I saw no poverty; neither did I encounter excess. I saw fraternity and equality prevailing among man.?
-Kahlil Gibran, A Glance At The Future, page 70Kahlil Gibran?s ?A Glance At The Future? was not a prophetic vision. If nothing else, it may have been the expression of some of his deepest wishes for humanity. Gibran envisioned a world where ignorance had been defeated and mankind would rise above confusion. He saw a world as beautiful as people who, ?understand the meaning of the flower?s breath and the cadences of the nightingale.? Above all else perhaps, he hoped that mankind would see itself as the cornerstone of creation and that Light would triumph.According to Anthony R. Ferris in the Preface to Thoughts And Meditations, Kahlil Gibran became somewhat disappointed in the world we live in. Gibran began to see that governments can by tyrannical, that honest men are forced into deceit, and that the people have been, ?led into narrow, separated faiths and suspicious, unfriendly, separated nations?. Ferris points out that Kahlil Gibran?s life was an example of the belief in the authority of the great mind, and that he imagined a place illumined by reason and understanding. It is from this disappointed, yet hopeful, view of the world that Thoughts And Meditations has been compiled.Of the twenty-nine short stories and poems in this book, there are many that stand out as living up to the high and beautifully-poetic standards that what we have all come to expect from the writings of Kahlil Gibran. In the poem ?Perfection?, Gibran gives an answer to the question of when someone will reach perfection, in much the same way he did in his book, The Prophet. The poem is divided into two parts, the first being what is required to reach the halfway point. To reach this halfway point, the requirement is only for someone to ?feel? certain things, such as:?A calm wind or a raging tempest,
a thundering sky or a rainy heaven,
A singing brook or a wailing rivulet,
a tree abloom in Spring,
or a naked sapling
in Autumn?The second requirement to Perfection is to perceive, experience, and understand things such as:?A nun suffering between the flowers of her faith and the thistles of her loneliness.?There are also poems and stories where Gibran expresses a more critical view, as in, ?Mr. Gabber? where he asserts from the beginning that he is, ?bored with gabbers and their gab.? Perhaps it was beyond the tender heart of Gibran to be hateful or truly spiteful, towards those whom he saw as conducting, ?loose talk, empty of meaning but stuffed with hypocrisy? because ?Mr. Gabber? is quite humorous at times. In addition to describing them individually, Gibran goes so far as to say that, ?Gabbers are innumerable. They can be divided into clans and tribes.? One such tribe Gibran describes are those who belong to a family of gnats: ?They hover around our heads and make tiny devilish noises.?Despite the fact that Kahlil Gibran may have been occasionally disappointed with the world and the people in it, he always remained hopeful. He never fails to deeply express his love and genuine concern for mankind. We are all sorrowed at times by this world we live in. The greed, the corrupt governments, and the absolute suffering exist for us today, as they did for Gibran. He provides us with his ever-caring spirit and always seems to uplift us with his words. Thoughts And Meditations will appeal to Gibran fans everywhere because in it he gives us his own standards for writing:?Poetry, my dear friends, is a sacred incarnation of a smile. Poetry is a sigh that dries the tears. Poetry is a spirit who dwells in the soul, whose nourishment is the heart, whose wine is affection. Poetry that comes not in this form is a false messiah.?
-Kahlil Gibran, Poets and Poems, page 82

-Brian Douthit
Eyes Of The Poet: Love and Passion in Lasting Splendor

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