Traveling without seeing ahead

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, from Given: New Poems

So often I want to see what is coming ahead, so that I can plan, so that I can better control things, including myself….But the future is not something we can see in any kind of certain way. And imagining that we can is a delusion to be avoided. That does not mean that we cannot be hopeful, however, for bright surprises.