I am in need of music that would flow Over my fretful, feeling fingertips. Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips, With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low, Of some song sun to rest the tired dead, A song to fall like water on my head, And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow.
Prayer is that divine seed whose roots draw food from earthly existence. Like the lotus flower that does not bloom in arable ground but in marshes, prayer thrusts its roots into human misery as if into mud. But the lotus flower does not show any trace of the muddy water from which it drew life; turned toward the sky, it blooms.
~ from AWAKENING TO PRAYER by Augustine Ichiro Okumura
