Lent 2024
50 Verses of Reflection and Meditation
Dr Abe V Rotor
These verses may be read as prayer for this Lenten season, preferably with background music of Meditation (From the Thais), by Massenet. On Wings of Song by Mendelssohn, and Ave Maria by Schubert and by Santiago. Leader sets the sequence in meditative mood.
1. When the skies cry and tears fall,
The grass is greener, so with the soul.2. The rain pelts on the faces of children
Turned heavenward. Look my brethren.
A slice of rainbow
3. Walks he alone in the rain singing,
Whether the wind's cool or the sun peeping.
4. If I'm responsible for what I tame,
Would I have a choice of only the lame?
5. A gentle breeze came through a lid;
Where's the window when the wall's solid?
6. Pray, but if Thor holds back the lightning bolts,
We may not have mushroom and the jolts.
7. Hush! Suddenly the world became still;
Gone is the lark or the raven on the sill.
8. Saxon wall, each turret a guard-
Now empty, lonely is war afterward.
9. Radial symmetry starts from the center,
That balances an outside force to enter.
10. What good is a lamp at the ledge?
Wait 'til the day reaches its edge.
11. In seeing our past we find little to share,
If the past is the present we're living in.
12. In abstract art you lose reality;
How then can I paint truth and beauty?
13. Brick wall, brick roof, brick stair,
Glisten in the rain, dull in summer air.
14.What's essential can't be seen by the eye
Like the faith of Keller and Captain Bligh.
15. Similar is rainbow and moth in flight
When you see them against the light.
16. From respite in summer fallow,
The fields start a season anew.
17. From green to gold the grains become
As they store the power of the sun.
18. Not all sand dunes for sure
Ends up on empty shore.
19. One little smoke tells the difference,
Like a faint pulse is life's reference.
20. It's collective memory that I'm a part
To write my life's story when I depart.
21. Lost time, lost opportunity and lost gain,
like passing wind that may not come again.
22. Who sees silver lining of clouds dark and bold
seeks not at rainbow's end a pot of gold.
23. A clenched fist softens under a blue sky
like high waves, after tempest, die.
24. When a flock of wild geese takes into the air
a leader must get ahead to break the barrier.
25. Even to a strong man, a little danger may create
the impression he's small or the problem is great.
Swallows on wire. Florida Blanca, Pampanga
26. In the doldrums or during sudden gusts,
the ship is much safer with a bare mast.
27. Wind, current, and keel make a perfect trio
only if they have one direction to follow.
28. You really can't tell where a sailboat goes
without keel, but to where the wind blows.
29. The sound of a yes may be deep or hollow,
and knowing it only by its own echo.
30. Walk, don't run, to see better and to know
the countryside, Mother Nature and Thou.~
31. We do not have the time, indeed an alibi
to indolence and loafing, letting time pass by.
32. As we undervalue ourselves, so do others
undervalue us. Lo, to us all little brothers.
undervalue us. Lo, to us all little brothers.
Sun on a hazy day
33. Self-doubt at the start is often necessary
to seek perfection of the trade we carry.
34. What is more mean than envy or indolence
but the two themselves riding on insolence.
35. The worst kind of persecution occurs in the mind,
that of the body we can often undermine.
36. How seldom, if at all, do we weigh our neighbors
the way we weigh ourselves with the same favors?
37. Friendship that we share to others multiplies
our compassion and love where happiness lies.
38. Evil is evil indeed - so with its mirror,
while goodness builds on goodness in store.
39. That others may learn and soon trust you,
show them you're trustworthy, kind and true.
40. Kindness and gladness, these however small
are never, never put to waste at all.
41. Beauty seen once breaks a heart,
Wait for the image to depart.
42. Being right and reasonable;
Black or white, and measurable.
43. She's coy who speaks soft and light;
Smoke first before fire ignites.
44. Every promise you can't keep
Drags you into a deeper pit.
A leader’s wisdom is dared.
46. Make believe prosperity;
Sound of vessel when empty.
Fr Miguel Benavides, founder University of Santo Tomas (1611)
47. Take from the ant or stork,
Patience is silence at work.
48. Good wine grows mellow with age;
Good man grows into a sage.
49. He finds reason for living
Who sees a new beginning.
50. Beauty builds upon beauty,
Patience is silence at work.
48. Good wine grows mellow with age;
Good man grows into a sage.
49. He finds reason for living
Who sees a new beginning.
50. Beauty builds upon beauty,
Ad infinitum to eternity. ~
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