Pain Pushes

Pain pushes until vision pulls. ~ Michael Beckwith

How do we keep on keeping on
when we feel as though we've held on
until the end of the rope -
the frayed ends of the end of the rope -
are all we can grasp, all we can hold,
all we have between us and despair, disaster,
doom? We can do it because we've been
to the edge, the medieval edge of the earth,
where "Here there be dragons."
We've known the pain. We've held on to pain
because that's all we can grasp, the tattered ends.
And then we found these rooms, these people,
who were once as we, who know those raggedy ropes
but who held them long enough, well enough,
to find the beyond, to learn not to fear dragons
but to hold onto hope, to find the vision
and the rope that pulls us away from the dragons
and to the vision, to the peace, to the joy, to life.