A Wendell Berry Poem on Spiritual Progress

A friend shared this poem that went straight to my heart. It is by Wendell Berry and it describes the sensation we have in a long recovery, of coming out of the woods.

Maybe you, like me, have those times when you feel you have barely changed, something hard is happening and you struggle, but when you look back you realize how far you’ve come and that you really are different.

When we look back we can see where we were before and we can see the graces that were there. It gives us the strength to go forward. We realize we have progressed and that there was grace. 

Here is the poem by Wendell Berry:

We travelers, walking to the sun,

can’t see
ahead, but looking back the very light

That blinded us shows us the way we came,

Along which blessings now appear, risen

As if from sightlessness to sight, and we,

By blessing brightly lit, keep going toward

That blessed light that yet to us is dark.

                                            

                                                      --Wendell Berry, Given: New Poems