PAIN: 

IT HURTS! 

Poem for Today - Monday - September 29, 2014

THE WAY OF PAIN

For parents, the only way

is hard. We who give life

give pain. There is no help.

Yet we who give pain

give love; by pain we learn

the extremity of love.

I read of Abraham's sacrifice

the Voice required of him,

so that he lead to the altar

and the knife his only son.

The beloved life was spared

that time, but not the pain.

It was the pain that was required.

I read of Christ crucified,

the only begotten Son

sacrificed to flesh and time

and all our woe. He died

and rose, but who does not tremble

for his pain, his loneliness,

and the darkness of the sixth hour?

Unless we grieve like Mary

at his grave, giving him up

as lost, no Easter morning comes.

And then I slept, and dreamed

the life of my only son

was required of me, and I

must bring him to the edge

of pain, not knowing why.

I woke, and yet that pain

was true. It brought his life

to the full in me. I bore him

suffering, with love like the sun,

too bright, unsparing, whole.

© Wendell  Berry 

in Upholding Mystery,

An Anthology

of Contemporary

Christian Poetry,

edited by David Impastato.

Oxford University Press,

pages 43-44