Poem September 11, 1976 Issue

NATURAL PROGRESS

Diana Fagen Johnson

How difficult progress is
to define.
It is easier to know what it isn't.
It isn't necessarily more things to own.
Nor is it running faster and faster
across our crowded calendars.
Not just making lists,
and judiciously crossing them off.
Progress must be more than this.

I have made progress
in prayer.
Humbly, joyfully,
I have understood some glint of truth
regarding a worry, worn from being
worked over for so long.
As a result of this illuminating discernment,
the problem thinned to the nothing it always was!

Progress, then, is inner spiritual enlightenment—
a kind of clearer sight.
And I have it naturally from God,
because I am unfolding.

Diana Fagen Johnson

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