The road of faith is not flat. There are stretches that climb, where the breath grows short and the legs ache. This sonnet sits with those steeper sections, and with the slow, patient strength that keeps moving when the going turns hard.
The Sonnet
The path begins to climb, and my slow feet Discover what the level road had hid, That weariness can rise to bitter heat, That hope can fail beneath the weighted lid. Each step is harder than the one before, The breath grows short, the trembling legs complain, The summit hidden by the rocks I tore My hands against in this unwelcome strain. But somewhere in the climbing I am taught That faith is not the absence of the slope, But what continues when the body's caught Between the going on and giving up of hope. So I will take the next slow step, and trust That climbing is the holy work of dust.
Reflection
Anyone who walks a long road knows that the path will sometimes turn upward. The early seasons of faith are often surprisingly level, the way pleasant, the company good. And then, somewhere, the climb begins. Loss arrives. A relationship strains. A vocation costs more than we knew it would. Faith itself becomes harder than it used to be.
The climb is not a sign that we have left the road. It is a sign that the road has done what roads through real terrain always do, gone uphill. The discipline of the climb is to take the next step, and the one after that, and to trust that the slope is part of the journey, not a detour from it. The strength we need is not given all at once. It is given for the step we are taking now.
If the path has grown steep, take the next step. You do not have to see the summit. You only have to put one foot in front of the other, and trust that the climbing itself is being used to make you strong.
