The Ladder of St. Augustine

In my studies this morning, I stumbled upon a quote from The Ladder of St. Augustine, a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I'm certain that the quote will sound familiar to you as soon as you've read it:

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

This stanza shares some wise counsel regarding persistence and diligence, but that's not the only gem of wisdom I found when I read the complete text. Here are my highlights:

Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
That of our vices we can frame
A ladder, if we will but tread
Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

This, the first stanza of the poem, takes some creative license with where one is allowed to place commas and separations between lines. I assure you that the rest of the poem is much easier to read. Stated simply, (and badly paraphrased,) this stanza says:

Saint Augustine, you have told us that if we tread beneath our feet all our past deeds of shame, we can frame a ladder out of our vices.

Much less poetic, but a bit easier to understand. It means (if my interpretation is worth anything) that if we put our past behind us, if we change ourselves, if we overcome our vices, that struggle and triumph will allow us to rise.

The mighty pyramids of stone,
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed with pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.

Mountains of often seen as great obstacles that are difficult to overcome, but offer great heights to those that meet the challenge. I never would have thought to include pyramids in that analogy, but Longfellow did. He also shared a new perspective on the mountains in the 'Obstacles with Opportunity' analogy, that once we've climbed a bit and gained a little perspective, we realize that the mountains are covered in natural pathways, that even though the mountains had seemed to be barriers, they were actually meant to be climbed. The pyramids, too, "when nearer seen, and better known," are covered in stairs that are easy enough to climb, if you take them step by step. But the last two stanzas are my favorite:

Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
We may discern - unseen before -
A path to higher destinies,

Nor doom the irrevocable Past
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
If, rising on its wrecks, at last
To something nobler we attain.

In this poem, Longfellow proves wiser than many. He shows that he understands that though the Past is unchangeable and filled with faults, flaws, and failures that we would love to change, even a pile of problems gives us something we can build on. If, out of the ashes of our mistakes, we learn wisdom, and if we use that wisdom to gain great heights, then it can be said that, in the long run, those challenges that we struggle with turn out to be good for us.

I, personally, hate my faults and weaknesses. I don't think they're making me stronger or better. They're making me weaker. Perhaps I could become stronger or wiser by overcoming them. But, standing at the bottom of the mountain, that seems like an impossible task. I'm sure St. Augustine and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow were higher up their mountains than I am up mine now when they said what I just quoted. Their perspective is better than mine.

Still, I have the perspective of faith. I've been told that challenges produce champions, that obstacles are opportunities, and that trials can result in triumphs, and I believe that it's true for other people. But is it true for me? Can my challenges make me a champion? Are my obstacles really opportunities? Can I face my trials and come out triumphant, like so many others have done? Can I be as strong and as good as I encourage my readers to be? Or am I a failure and a hypocrite, whose only real success in life is encouraging others to be better than me?

What I still need to recognize (among so many other things) is that one's perspective goes hand-in-hand with their attitude, which, as a wrote a few days ago, is of vital importance. Life by the yard is hard, but by the inch is a cinch. I can't imagine climbing up a flight of stairs as tall as a pyramid or the Empire State Building, but I know I could climb one flight of stairs with ease. Why not start with that? And once I've climbed one flight of stairs, I'll go climb another, and then another. It'll add up over time. As long as I keep moving forward and try not to regress, I may eventually find, to my great surprise, that I've climbed higher than I ever thought I could, higher than I now think that I'll ever be able to climb. It all starts with just a couple of steps. I can do that much. And if I can keep that perspective, perhaps I can do more than I currently think I can.