Wendell Berry on Spiritual Progress

A friend shared a poem with me this week that went straight to my heart. It is by Wendell Berry and it describes so well 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 or ache, then you look back to see where you have come from and you realize how far you’ve come and that you really are different.

When we look back we can see where we have been and we can see the graces that were there then. What gives us the strength to go forward is the realization of how far we have come and knowing there was grace. Looking back gives us the faith to go forward.

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