Birth is a beginning
And life is a journey:
From childhood to
maturity
And youth to age;
From innocence to
awareness
And ignorance to
knowing;
From foolishness to
discretion
And then, perhaps, to
wisdom;
From weakness to
strength
Or strength to weakness
–
And, often, back again;
From health to sickness
And back, we pray, to
health again;
From offense to
forgiveness,
From loneliness to
love,
From joy to gratitude,
From pain to
compassion,
And grief to
understanding –
From fear to faith;
From defeat to defeat
to defeat –
Until, looking backward
or ahead,
We see that victory
lies
Not at some high place
along the way,
But in having made the journey,
stage by stage,
A sacred pilgrimage.
Birth is a beginning
And death a
destination.
And life is a journey,
A sacred pilgrimage –
To life everlasting
