How easy for me to live with you, Lord!
How easy to believe in you!
When my mind casts about
or flags in bewilderment,
when the cleverest among us
cannot see past the present evening,
not knowing what to do tomorrow --
you send me the clarity to know
that you exist and will take care
that not all paths of goodness should be barred.
At the crest of earthly fame
I look back in wonderment
at the journey beyond hope--to this place,
from which I was able to send mankind
a reflection of your rays.
And however long the time
that I must yet reflect them
you will give it to me.
And whatever I fail to accomplish
you surely have allotted unto others.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
What I admire in this poem is first of all the faith. "How easy to believe" he says, which sounds like some hymns I dislike for being too simplistic, singing that all our problems are over when we come to God. But that is certainly not Solzhenitsyn's story. He wrote this after going off to war as a young man, then going to the Gulag for eight years, then nearly dying of cancer, then suddenly finding success as a writer (for once a good surprise). So he certainly knew the bewilderment of not knowing what to do.
I also admire the humility. The fame he enjoys when he wrote this he sees as him reflecting God's glory. And he knows he's not the only one reflecting God's glory, whatever he does not succeed in is the tasks God has given to others.
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