This is Episode 60 of Poems for the Speed of Life. Today's poem is "Clearing" by Martha Postlethwaite.

Welcome to today’s short episode of Poems for the Speed of Life, a daily podcast that brings you one poem each weekday morning, and tries to bring you some of its power too. As with today’s poem and all the others, you are free to ignore introduction. If the poem says something specific or different to you, go with that, wherever it goes.

Martha Postlethwaite is theologian, educator, counselling psychologist and spiritual teacher based in St Paul, Minnesota. She is the author of “Addiction and Recovery: A Spiritual Journey” and is a lead pastor with the Recovery Church, a Christian organization which describes itself as a healing ground for those who want to get well.

“Making the world a better place” is a stated ambition for so many people. There’s something in this desire that often strikes me as laden with guilt and shame. That in some way the world is suffering and struggling and the onus is on us to fix it. This forces us to look outwards first. And so introspection is perhaps rarer and more precious than it might be.

This poem invites us instead to look inwards first as we go through life.

You can read the poem here.

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