With a little help from my friends

The older I get the less independent I become. Or so it seems. I suppose there is a certain calm “passivity” or lack of panic that comes with age. It can allow a kind of slow incubation of ideas and projects to hold at arm’s length. What I’m learning however is that, when it comes to matters of song and art and poetry – the stuff that floats my boat, I’m very dependent on others. I need their insights, their opinions (whether they hurt or not), their support, their better words to supplement my often insipid, verbose ones and their companionship in the way of beauty. I need their stories. Without the foamy headwaters of my life crashing in ways both large and small into someone else’s life, what remains are the equatorial doldrums of lack luster porridgy existence uninteresting even to myself.

But I keep finding interesting people to read. Or maybe I’m just becoming that middle aged guy who now finds interesting what once was a yawn. There are many other people like myself who seek to compose the scattered detritus of their own narrative into some artful shape that sings out in humor, frustration, pain or boredom. I consider my friends the many others who have been sucked into this vast bloggy neighborhood. They may not even know I’m here. But I value what they have to say. I pray that some form of meaningful reciprocity comes their way through my own meager gleanings. 

That’s it. That’s all I needed to say. Thank you, online word warriors, whoever you are. Keep the fire burnin’ as Kenny Loggins would say. And, as some other famous people once sang, “I’ll get by with a little help from my friends.” Most just happen to be virtual.

We are a little over halfway through National Poetry Month. What I should have done with this last submission was ask you to share some of your poetry specific to this particular time in the Christian calendar – that in between place of post-Easter-pre-Pentecost. Feel free to share your poetic thoughts as well!

robertalanrife's avatarRob's Lit-Bits

We are now post-Easter in what, historically, has been called “Eastertide.” With our post-resurrection eyes we have the benefit of hindsight and a big picture view of Easter week events. I should really reflect more on that and probably will. Instead, I share a bit more about the Saturday before the Easter event. If we can remove ourselves from what we now know and envision ourselves among those first disciples, we can perhaps grasp a little better the dramatic change from a Saturday despair to a Sunday hope.

 

Be – in – tween

 

It seems an eternity for what promised eternity

to wrest itself from dark and dank and deathly cell.

Yet hours have passed, not days and still can’t be

how you would show us life before death you fell.

 

Everything we gave and more to stand as one

in your reverie of newness, in time…

View original post 356 more words

I reblog merely to invite your thoughts and comments on how God may be leading you in this post-Easter-pre-Pentecost time of learning and living with Jesus.

robertalanrife's avatarinnerwoven

Eastertide. It’s tempting to think that, after the resurrection of Jesus, all was done that needed doing; all the loose ends neatly tied, the t’s crossed and i’s dotted. The whole Easter pie had only to cool on the window sill and hungry people could dig in to its holy goodness.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, it was only the beginning. The fifty day period that followed the empty tomb, celebrated at Pentecost (which means fifty weeks) and with it the coming of the Spirit, saw Jesus’ daily planner more packed than ever. Facing him were a veritable army of quaking, heart-broken, soul-sick, emotionally shattered disciples. Probably no one in history ever needed an encouraging word more than they!

So, while the religious leaders happily gloated over their perceived victory over this Nazarene upstart, Jesus was re-ligamenting (the same root from which we get religion) the…

View original post 611 more words

Be – in – tween

We are now post-Easter in what, historically, has been called “Eastertide.” With our post-resurrection eyes we have the benefit of hindsight and a big picture view of Easter week events. I should really reflect more on that and probably will. Instead, I share a bit more about the Saturday before the Easter event. If we can remove ourselves from what we now know and envision ourselves among those first disciples, we can perhaps grasp a little better the dramatic change from a Saturday despair to a Sunday hope.

 

Be – in – tween

 

It seems an eternity for what promised eternity

to wrest itself from dark and dank and deathly cell.

Yet hours have passed, not days and still can’t be

how you would show us life before death you fell.

 

Everything we gave and more to stand as one

in your reverie of newness, in time of all that comes

to quell and quiver and quash the forces of un-done

that hate and hold and hammer our daughters, our sons.

 

Our group was tall, like trees or hills, a truth to share

to all who hear or have not strength nor shame to hold

the weight of wait for that or this, the just or fair

awakened now but still shadow, pledge, a story told.

 

Why leave us in such mean estate of doubt, despair and dark

when but a word, a touch, a look all pain suspends,

and move, retool, redact the tepid toil our sorry ways embark

instead to choose what not you chose but placed in others hands depends?

 

But now what cryptic hint of empty rock-èd tomb bestirs

this rumored gossip that comes to taunt and tease, we rue

with quivered tongue and knees that buckle unsure

if this should be a joke, another tale to ruse, all hope undo?

 

Silly girls, you babble, burst and blubber forth what cannot be

the news of, what, we cannot say, except impossible to hear

and still remain in dark and desperate impossibility?

No longer face we fear of ending but ending of our fear?

 

If this be what I think I see then torn am I from all my knowing,

abandon now my shrinking soul and bursting out with heated heart

I clutch and grasp my tightened breast, my parch-ed throat, now stowing

what vestiges remain of sadness and remorse depart.

 

My brothers here and sisters, too, once shattered dreams reborn

as mist of doubt and pain of loss and waves of night congealed.

To satisfy, not mystify, was your intent. You shed the scorn

of those of them and us who turned from shame, our love concealed.

 

Severed from the death before, now living, path and joy to bring

you settle down to chat and dine and titillate with presence rare.

All that was then is not what now seems true or right to sing,

Still, in our time be-darked, be – in – tween, you trade your joy for our despair.

Hope in the in between

Eastertide. It’s tempting to think that, after the resurrection of Jesus, all was done that needed doing; all the loose ends neatly tied, the t’s crossed and i’s dotted. The whole Easter pie had only to cool on the window sill and hungry people could dig in to its holy goodness.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, it was only the beginning. The fifty day period that followed the empty tomb, celebrated at Pentecost (which means fifty weeks) and with it the coming of the Spirit, saw Jesus’ daily planner more packed than ever. Facing him were a veritable army of quaking, heart-broken, soul-sick, emotionally shattered disciples. Probably no one in history ever needed an encouraging word more than they!

So, while the religious leaders happily gloated over their perceived victory over this Nazarene upstart, Jesus was re-ligamenting (the same root from which we get religion) the faith of his broken followers. While they busily politicked with the ruling Roman elite, further positioning themselves for power, prestige and pull, Jesus was subversively showing himself to his startled friends and laying the foundation for what would help to crumble the false one upon which had been built such a vast religio-political empire. These humble souls, gradually enlivened and encouraged in the presence of the one to whom they had so completely surrendered but who had so unimpressively left them, would eventually go on to change the face of the known world. It would change our world. Indeed nothing would ever be the same again.

In and through the whole debacle that we’ve come to know as Easter there comes a promise like no other. In a way, never before seen in time or eternity, here heaven and earth kissed. God had stooped to embrace this damaged, sinful and light-starved cosmos in the most unexpected way. God slipped in the back door as a baby, with parents and jobs and bills. He became a man; a man with a story, a life, and that life was the light of all.

If we can learn anything from this time in the great salvation narrative it’s that there is always hope in the in between. Those periods when the book of our lives has been slammed shut and everything from which we drew hope and inner sustenance has been blotted out like a solar eclipse are only precursors for what we cannot yet see. Matthew’s gospel has the first words from Jesus’ post-resurrection lips as simply, “greetings.” With precious little fanfare for one they would come to understand as the King of kings, he gives them a simple, howdy! It is almost as though he was playing some twisted game of life and death peek-a-boo and he’d just been found out.

For all the complexities of our mortal lives, Jesus ever comes in the simplicity of everyday conversation. Before we can piece it all together and make sense of the tangled liminality of this-world living Jesus pokes his head in the shower door and catches us completely unaware and vulnerable. But, for the joy of seeing the one face we most needed to see, we forego any shock or dismay and welcome anew the place he once held in our lives.

The joy of lovers reunited is all the sweeter following the pain of separation. Eyes are never happier to see than when they’ve lost all hope of ever seeing again. The heart’s deep pain is quickly forgotten in the realization of that which once held it captive so effortlessly.

Let’s allow ourselves to dig deeper into the Easter story, letting it dig deeper into us and become our story. Having journeyed through the penitence and preparation of Lent, the strange irony of Palm Sunday, the tense calm of the Last Supper with its eerie undercurrents of betrayal, the black forgottenness and despair of Good Friday, the deathly silence of Holy Saturday, for those first disciples, that was where it ended. No triumph and fanfare. Just hopelessness.

But it didn’t end there. For those who place their trust in the Nazarene carpenter, it never is. Like those before us, we are continually being reintroduced to the forgotten Savior, the one who left us alone, but the one who returns. And he returns with goodies.

Before they could receive what was promised at Pentecost, when eyes were opened, tongues loosed, lives renewed, they waited. That’s what disciples do in the in between. They wait.

We wait.

We listen.

We prepare.

Then, at the right time…hope springs eternal and, like the Spring we are…

reborn.

Different Voices, Many Songs, One God

The great medieval feminist and Christian mystic, Hildegard von Bingen, composed a famous choral work, entitled “Ordo Virtutum.” It is really more of a musical narrative in which she weaves sublime choral and instrumental music punctiliously around ominous interjections of a sinister speaking voice, that of the devil, who utters hateful words towards the Almighty. As such she makes the metaphoric statement that all of God’s creatures were created to sing God’s praise.  However, only the enemy of God is denied the gift of song.  As God’s beloved creation, we are all a part of God’s redemption song in Jesus Christ.  Melody bespeaks our common humanity.  It defines our existence.  It narrates our story.  It proclaims God’s story.  It enshrines community and it is the food of glory.

Certainly, for many years choral music has played a central role in the worship life of the church.  It has been so in my own spiritual journey.  I credit Bach’s “Wedding Cantata”, his Brandenburg Concerto #2 and Anton Bruckner’s “Ave Maria” for creating the emotional backdrop for my own conversion.  As a young boy I enjoyed singing with the Children’s Choir of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church (the place I also learned to play the bagpipes – forgive them, they knew not what they were doing!).  I submit that a majority of folks on the faith journey would share similar sentiments regarding their own connection with music especially as it relates to worship.

I’m delighted to serve a rather odd Presbyterian church as music director; odd because we have determined not to divide ourselves up along preferential music lines based on consumerist ideology. Instead, for good or ill, we have journeyed together down the long and winding road of a single “convergence” worship service (I first heard this term used by Dr. Tom Long in his book, Beyond the Worship Wars). I actually prefer “eclectic” worship since “convergence” can feel a bit like someone hit the puree button on the music blender that spills out some indefinable ooze of congregational sludge.

We’ve sung everything from Bach to contemporary praise song arrangements to “Down to the River to Pray” from the movie, “Brother, Where Art Thou?”  We have sought to re-envision ourselves.  We have had many tough conversations together.  We have laughed and cried and prayed together in our quest to dwell under one roof, at one time, on one day, for one purpose: to bring honor to God by our common voice –  different voices, many songs, one God.

What this means is that we will never really be able to commit to the full on praise band since, to do so would immediately alienate those for whom such worship language would be far too big a challenge. It also means that our organist will always be under-utilized and over-anxious because she never gets to play as often as she would like and in ways that are most conducive to her own musical proclivities. Everyone sacrifices something to be together as a single family, albeit with a slightly higher baseline of discontent!

The joy and camaraderie of voices raised in harmonious praise is something that must be experienced for oneself. The shared sacrifice required to offer one another room for divergent but unique voices to be heard and appreciated is the true stuff of heaven. It is singularly Kingdom driven and really difficult to pull off. But it’s the best struggle I’ve been a part of thus far.

So, dear Hildegard, I’m inspired by your musical picture of God’s Kingdom. It is a Kingdom where everyone can sing together but where the enemies of God and God’s community are forced to bellow, grunt, wheeze and whine instead of joining that single, great choir called from every corner of the globe to worship this God. I leave you with these words from Hildegard: “Your Creator loves you exceedingly, for you are His creature, and He gives you the best of treasures.”

Music is just one of those.

Rimrock retreat – a day at Ghormley Meadows

The day after Holy Week. It is bittersweet. Bitter, because all that the week promises in its wealth of life-giving news and hints of transformation is gone for another year. Sweet, because such a grand narrative is never over. It is always just beginning.

For National Poetry Month and to honor a most delightful day at a local Christian camp, I offer the following:

 

Rimrock retreat – a day at Ghormley Meadows

 

Rimrock, rustic and real with space

to contain all that’s empty.

The rugged road cast before feet apace

where moon outshines the sun’s identity-

but loses out to one yet brighter.

 

Pillaged, austere and raw this one comes

bent and spent he went round

and there to see tomb unmanned, he’d won

what spillage, spewed, is spared, fixed and found.

I was blind but now have sight, or

 

is all that sees as blind or lost

as one whose eyes are just downcast?

For just to see is not to walk, wind-toss’d

and free from nature’s slighted past.

Between the stones of each one’s road

 

grow wild, still, evidences of strangely new

that mix with voices old to taunt

and vie for the once-free. But they, too

must retreat or be removed like mustard-mount

seeds of faith renewed, of hope, sowed

 

to keep and deepen the promised field

of unswept dreams and unkept pains;

detritus of lesser gods gives way to peals

of forest bells and words and Word unstain’d

This one’s tale of a Tale once and forever told.

Now, as we approach the exciting conclusion to the Lenten journey, I repost something written at its beginning. The end of something is tied to its beginning and dependent on the in-between, or life in the dash, as it were. That’s where we live until God says otherwise…

robertalanrife's avatarRob's Lit-Bits

Ash Wednesday, February 22, 2012

 

Begins again this Springward journey;

rebirthing all that once lived.

Trickle again once fickle brook and stream

sickle sighs yet in repose, sleeping still.

Earth, sore and Winter-stiff, seeks, sighs

stretches out skinny arms of want.

Her cold, hard bosom births not what soon will come

e’er the Sun’s hungry mouth suckles,

fills his lusty gut on hopeful barrenness

feasting on milk of timeworn, weary passage.

She forgets not the suddenness of late

and sooner dark, splayed upon a fine, greenness

come for to spite the buds of transforming light

bidding death where life has yet to emerge.

Warmly insistent she speaks, sharing her story

poured out over the long-shadowed land.

Bring such bothersome beauty to branchier speech,

fall around us, spilling, foaming such fury

and fermenting our soon-drunk wine of promise;

earthen spirit’s Eucharistic prayer.

Hush now, silence yourself bold coldness and spare…

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The bus to Emmaeus – a modern parable

For anyone who has ever had their deepest dreams dashed in an instant, the post-crucifixion story of Emmaeus can provide much hope in the midst of a paralyzing darkness. In this narrative, those who had spent everything, risked everything, left everything and hoped everything to follow the strange but alluring sage from Gallilee had watched him die. With that death came not merely the loss of he who had crystallized their emerging faith in a good, grace-giving God, but most likely any further vestiges of such faith in anything potentially like it in the future. Truly, for them, the world held no hope anymore. All was dark.

Unless you keep reading…

It was he who spoke first.  “Man, you guys look like someone died or something.  Is everything all right?” Pausing at first, but sensing that it was safe to speak, Randall replied, “Yeah, sure.  There’s nothing quite like following some guy for three years only to have his head blown off by some radical lunatic.”

“For sure”, Arvid added, “we finally find a cause that we can sink our teeth into and three years later my wife hates me, he’s carted off to a mock trial, crooked cops and a puppet judge.  Yeah, life’s just great.”

The man looked baffled.  Randall and Arvid looked incredulously at each other.  Then Randall said, “how is it possible that you haven’t heard what’s been happening in this town lately?”

The two men had been sitting gloomily together surveying the muddy streets from the vantage point of the Number 10 bus to down town.  They weren’t sure if it were possible to feel any more dejected.  For close to three years their world had revolved almost exclusively around one man and his revolutionary ideas.  Arvid had left behind a successful business, Randall the final year of grad school, to follow the allure of a leader whose keen sense of brotherly love, life, and justice had all but left them breathless.  He spoke of things that no one else ever had.  Arvid’s wife, June, could never figure out what the big deal was and the quaint little “group” that had formed around him seemed a little self-indulgent to her; no different than his Monday night poker pals. Grace, Randall’s wife, had taken up as a member from early on and was feeling as emotionally drained as he.

And now, the familiar bus ride to the group headquarters in a transformed office building provided about as much grief and confusion as they could stand.  Their silence had betrayed the many questions burning within them.  Why would this man mess with their lives, creating a rather large mid-life diversion for two guys who could ill afford one?  For someone who spoke so much about life, why was he now dead – shot executioner style by thugs that the tabloids were suggesting were hired by the Mayor himself?  Where was the promise of a new order?  Of a bold future?  The whole thing just seemed so ridiculous, so…pointless.

They had been revelling in their gloom, when this man to whom they now spoke, sat down, newspaper in hand, in the seat adjacent to theirs.  He seemed to be thinking.  Randall noticed it first.  His profile.  His demeanour.  Hadn’t they seen this guy before?

The conversation that followed would be the most radically transforming one they had ever had.  Not only did this guy know all the details but gave a very enlightened and revealing synopsis of the entire situation including all the reasons why.  Arvid and Randall sat dumbfounded and, for the first time since their dark weekend they sat in peace – reflective and hopeful.  They spoke excitedly among themselves for a few minutes more and as Arvid turned to speak to the man…he was gone.

Over Scotland

Originally written as the beginnings of a lyric to a song I was writing to commemorate the same trip, this comes as I gazed out an airplane window at Scotland below us. It was 1988 and my wife, Rae, and I were moving to Edinburgh to live and work for a short time. It is the country and culture closest to my heart as I hope this short poem illustrates.

 

Over Scotland

High flying, window glass reveals tattered floor-

Pristine heaven greets eyes open to curving planet yonder

Stretching, reaching, sky-borne, we soar.

Place of kings bringing wonder to hearts that wonder.

Stipple-green, ground richly steeped in lush, purple hue-

Woven pattern of road-cut scenes moves closer,

Sky meets peripheral sky, horizon’s hazy blue.

Shadows run as daylight comes, chosen.

Well-fermented scenes distilled in ancient dreams-

Walls of stone, hearts of flesh, eyes of steel,

Pageantry in motion, all is as it seems.

Like God in man, surreal kisses real.