Author: robertalanrife

I have spent the better part of my life as a professional musician. Primarily, that has meant the fun and challenging world of church music. Most recently, I have transitioned out of my role as worship and music director for Yakima Covenant Church, Yakima, Washington to global service in Edinburgh, Scotland. I'm a singer-songwriter, liturgist, poet, and writer. I love words. I love to read them. I love to write them. Most of all, I love the many intersections, like a sacramental tapestry, of life, liturgy, literature, the arts, and spiritual formation...oh, and I love haggis.

Last of the summer, leaves

On October 11, 2014October 12, 2014 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing Poetic, Words...always words5 Comments

I watch while the last of the summer leaves

the last of the summer leaves,

cornered by color, bullied by wind,

pushed from their tenuous

one-finger perches. Dangling

from hope, they yet cling to what was.

To what can never be again.

Buttressed now by stealth and stain,

the trees hold their breath and, in bloated hues,

leave behind what could never have been kept.

The molten days of August, now

Eastward creeping, cannot match

the closer dawn of winter’s darker agenda.

Change waits for no one.

Our frightened but fawning fraternity,

grips the once-dangling inside jokes.

But our song-sick companionship, bends

to sight and chance and change.

Beyond the clutch and ken of

drowning dreams, old stories, made young

again in the telling, sleep in

the quiet choirs of shared experience.

Love, always trumpeting her own exploits,

is writ larger against the dim and shrinking page.

Huddling for warmth against the inevitability

of inevitability crouches the promise of the new,

ripped and wrapped in golden heaps of trust.

Grasp too tightly to the branch and nothing

comes to shape what shadow left behind.

Trading form for frame, green for gold,

gone for glow, tired specters of older

days return to their places to sleep,

and dream of dreams.

The pledge of change.

What is left after un-leaving

stays bleak but for a moment.

Soon, the barren skin of dawn

must shed to bear and bare what only

death could bring.

Everything.

ALTARWORK dot calm

On October 9, 2014October 9, 2014 By robertalanrifeIn Beauty, Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, literature, poetry, sacramental living, the artsLeave a comment

These are those delightful, though humbling serendipities that add such a glow of grace to life. Please check out this wonderful initiative of which I am honored to be a part…

“ALTARWORK is delighted to present a sample of Rob’s poetry – eight poems in all. Rob has a unique voice and style – eclectic, uniquely profound – and is unafraid to stray beyond convention with regards to his subject matter, point of view, and wordplay. Rob is a highly enjoyable read.”

— Jason Ramsey, ALTARWORK Founder/Editor

At the corner of validation and forgot

On October 5, 2014 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Parables, Waxing Poetic1 Comment

At this drunken shoreline, patterns return, in

quilted quiet. I can revel again in spiced hours,

deaf to the biker-ghosts, bad-mouthing

this demure, paper posture.

Thoughts are a little rumpled, like the sea,

what with these ferocious memories; un-manacled,

like cottonwood dreams, blown out into the world.

This world I am watching.

* * * * *

She walks down the street, locking

every wandering glance; stolen stares from

other hungers. Sad limbs, built for laughing strolls,

carry instead their weight in

desperation, the roll call gestures of

fragmentary magnetism. To look down is to invalidate,

the one thing that renders such creatures immobilized.

She never looks straight on. Being seen but

unknown has honed a peripheral awareness

to a hawk-like precision. It’s the hollow

look of the lonely.

* * * * *

That’s a tiny dog for such an imposing guy.

It must have something to do with an ill-

fitting black t-shirt. I still love AC/DC, too. But

the designer sunglasses match the grey goatee and flip

flops well enough to doubt the bravado, question

the impartial coarseness; his language just color-

ful enough to hide the deeper grey.

The fear of more.

* * * * *

Her weighty eyes climb his rusting frame; a gaze

made full in the weight of familiarity. His jaw-

line, thin, like his tired neck, perches on

shoulders, stooped, but unburdened by

neat and tidy, pressed, quick, or stoic. Endless pages

pass between their easiness, two souls in single,

unflinching presence. He remembers less

than the love she feels, spoken through his

wrinkled palm in hers, their fingers entwined.

The tapestry of their years.

* * * * *

The penny arcade discoveries of wide-mouthed boys –

more magic through a cheap telescope than my pretense of self-

imposed juxtapositions. Their cocky, self-

assured swagger breathes the new air, heedless of my

artless anxiety in their art of care-less play. Can voices

really be that loud? So much more gets spoken in

the repetitions of unpracticed

wisdom. Their code is a skateboard sculpture. Life

on a flat, four-wheeled universe. Soon,

when fearful complexities begin to gnaw

through the ropes that tether youth to

moments and days, will they remember

this foolish display of seaside

time, gloriously wasted?

* * * * *

This guy has no story to tell. At least

that’s what is suggested in the gymnastic

dodging of eyes and steps from

that hand. Oh, that hand, weary, upturned for

that drop of grace found in spare quarters, lost

among our Visa receipts. Well-rehearsed

well-wishing will never match the possibility of just

one good conversation. His stench, reminder of loss,

friendship’s nemesis, gift of forgottenness,

taunts him. It’s one more reason to avoid him.

He owns nothing.

Well, except a checker board. But, that’s designed

for company.

* * * * *

A tide and a thousand waves later, a laptop

overheats my knees. It reads 17%, the same possibility

I’ll remember their faces by the weekend. I am

like them – just another stigma.

Or, maybe another story waiting to be written.

Unwritten.

Rewritten.

Here at the corner of

validation and forgot.

homeless-man

Images found here and here, respectively

A Celt in a kilt and the beautiful mundane

On September 19, 2014October 9, 2014 By robertalanrifeIn bagpipes, celtic music, celtic spirituality, Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, music, poetry, sacramental living, the arts7 Comments

This was originally posted as a guest post on a favorite website of mine, Abbey of the Arts (thank you Christine Valters-Paintner!). What a delight to be given opportunity to share one’s life among kindred spirits in the grand dance that is our eternal redemption.

Please, please, please, if you haven’t already done so, be sure to visit Christine and the rest of us Monk-Artists at the Abbey. Come visit/like the Facebook page as well. You’ll be so glad you did. I promise.

__________________________________________________________

A Celt in a Kilt and the Beautiful Mundane

I-You-Holy Ground
By Robert Alan Rife

I am the dusty ground, low and dry
thirsty for the imprint of holy feet.
Despoil with radiant prints, this virgin ground.

You are the rain, falling deftly
upon my brown soil. Now is left
your footprint on this ground.

I am the ashen leaves, curling and broken
awaiting but a whisper. For only then
can I fall on solid ground.

You are the soundless wind, howling, still.
You creep up behind me and
exhale me to the ground.

I am the snow, disembodied worlds of cold
and chance encounters with hand, or tongue,
eye-lash or palm needing ground.

You are the frozen air in which I am held
aloft, drawn slowly down
to meet with others on the frozen ground.

I am the waning autumn death
soon to give way to the long silence-when one Voice
becomes the loudest ground.

You are the Voice that speaks
heard best in dying, power given for
rising from this shivering ground.

I am the distant hours, the midnight passing-
the refusing minutes, trapped in hours,
running from the years of ancient ground.

You are the many, and the one, and all time
and nothing and everything from nothing
where time has no ground.

I am the weeping, the squalid groaning,
the unrequited miseries of misery’s company
laying crippled and diffused in the ground.

You are the end of tears and years, the question
and the answer, the sutured nerve of joy, not suggested
but present, here, on this Holy Ground.

________________________________________

For me, the term ‘monk’ used to mean ‘one safely cloistered away from the cares of normal life in dimly lit, echoing stone hallways where hooded men sing hauntingly beautiful music and basically float just a bit off the ground. A single, piercing glance from their crystalline eyes means healing, they have superpowers, can read your thoughts, never need to eat, and speak once a year whether they need to or not.

Since leaving behind my roots in evangelicalism for headier waters elsewhere I’ve since discovered that monks often have the sauciest senses of humor, the bawdiest stories and, not surprisingly, the deepest delight in the world around them. My kinda fellas. They’re as non-dualistic as they come; a life to which I aspire. Apophatic meditation one moment. Bodily noises the next. Welcome to my world.

I am a dreamer; a philosopher-poet capable of romanticizing even the most mundane banalities. To a guy like me, cutting the grass has the potential to be a portal into the nether regions of the universe, awash in liminality, where mythic faeries ride unicorns on their way to Celtic slumber parties. But, I’ve been known to overstate a little.

Clearly, I’m a favorite among type-A corporate headhunters (tongue super-glued to cheek). Rather, stereotypical songwriters, tree-huggers, poets, unfocused A.D.D. artsy-fartsies, and contemplatives love to love me. They’re my peeps. My homies. They know my psychic address.

These overly romanticized sensibilities haven’t always promised smooth sailing for me. In fact, more often than not they’ve brought more than their fair share of woe and disillusionment. The world has precious little patience for those like me, preferring instead the multi-tasking, power-doers with ambitions larger than the moon upon which they hang their coats (but generally not their egos). It’s a challenge in our super-charged, winner-take-all culture to prove real value in lighting candles and pursuing silence when time is money and money is god and god keeps shrinking or running away.

My earliest recollections of spiritual awareness contained the following simple elements: surprised by joy moments, generally unasked for and seldom expected; a sudden awareness that the world was not really as it seemed – that from God’s perspective all was well. Specifically, I was drawn to all things ancient, mystical and Celtic. As a bagpiper/Irish whistle player who has toured extensively it makes sense that, for me, the world is seen through green colored glasses, smells just a little peaty, telephone poles were meant for tossing, and “ladies” is misspelled on the restroom door (insert look of shock and consternation here).

Although a mystic from a very early age, despite a decided lack of language to articulate such things, my fate was forever sealed when, for the first time I heard the Great Highland Bagpipe. I was seven years old. I was gobsmacked. Mere weeks later, in the basement of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, I started learning to play the pipes. I have played ever since.

Something else happened however. It christened a liminal journey of my inner mystic and forever sealed my fate as a lover of all things Celtic, monastic and artistic. It also began an almost unassuagable thirst for the monastic realities of thin-place living. Puddles become holy water. All time, whether singing, snoring or snacking, can be wrapped up in a ball of quivering holiness. It is the essence of Celtic spirituality. It is my essence (especially if we had haggis the night before).

Now, a gazillion years and as many prayers later, to be an artist, a mystic and a monastic-wannabe is for me to see myself less as a dreamer and more as a waking dream. Life is to find the holy in the banal; the glorious mundane. The perfect, daily moments of nothing-special that, simply by virtue of noticing them, become possibilities of inherent wonder. The greatest gift I’ve received in the past few years, something particularly attributable to the Celts, is that of awakening to these shimmering possibilities in the blasé and dull. How brightly they shine under the light of the God of order and magnificent delights.

I suppose

On September 17, 2014September 17, 2014 By robertalanrifeIn Words...always wordsLeave a comment

I suppose I thought that, once the days had shaken themselves loose of the encumbrances of motion, and the menace of time, the twittering sky could finally waffle, untethered, under piecemeal clouds to consider her options.

I suppose I thought that, given the distance involved, someone might be better off to find oneself caught in the dilemma of giving up uncaring responses to caring questions than not to answer at all.

I suppose I thought that, with that last bitter twinge of guilt, not so hidden but buck-toothed and fuscia-brimm’d against the waiting whiteness, the notes might be in tune.

I suppose I thought that, underneath the quivering madness of illusion, hiding behind curtains in a living room full of misapprehensions, would come the smallest sigh, the narrowest glance.

I suppose I thought that, without a second thought, mysteries caught up in stubborn embrace of tired stories pinned to old trees never well-planted might actually find bards to sing their praises.

I suppose I thought that, with enough poetry strung out on lines of hopeful thought, and enough poets, kindling together those lines, breath might swell again into a coughing history.

I suppose

First and Last

On September 16, 2014 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

Whenever it seems like a day asks more than it should

from one, hollowed out and worm-ed through,

remind yourself, though morning’s light came first,

the first word is yours.

Haiku Prayers II

On September 9, 2014 By robertalanrifeIn Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

Caught deep in my throat

Are songs too light for singing

You sing them instead

My senses stutter

My ears unfit to listen

And yet, still, you speak

Dark clouds come sighing

But shadows run from daylight

Light too raw for words

In communion, come

To taste the bread of freedom

And brandish a cup

Like apple blossoms

Fallen from their lonely place

Are we, so planted

Sever, now, my tongue

And replace it with silence

Then, alone, I sing

Gift of paradox

Understanding brings little

Freed in conundrum

Sweet breath of Mary

Mother to all, then as now

Speak the name of God

Nanaimo

On August 31, 2014 By robertalanrifeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

A little piece from a trip to Nanaimo, B.C.

Rob's Lit-Bits

Nanaimo at night. Photo: Rae Kenny-Rife

Layers of green-backed mountains muscle their way through bruised-blue ocean. Hovering always beside us, they serve as our constant reminder to look this way, west, when lost (an hourly occurrence with me at the wheel). The air is grey, merging as one with the sky that frames it. Those, like us, whose weather experience is unyielding, unnecessarily hot, desert sun, often boast of the abundance of light. But, unlike the pushy, insistent sunlight of eastern Washington, the light here is complex, nuanced, shy and non-committal, like a teenage girl not quite ready for a boyfriend’s advances. Colors and textures are more discernible; faces, buildings, and backgrounds more sophisticated, not blanched and obvious from the brash directness of a boastful sun. This light is earned and, as such, even more deeply appreciated for its whimsical scarcity.

Rain here is currency, making this a rich place…

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Nanaimo

On August 31, 2014August 31, 2014 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Words...always words1 Comment

Rain here is currency, making this a rich place indeed. Its presence is more than just expected. Its certainty brings with it a comfort akin to the smug knowledge that umbrellas bring in clearly delineating tourists from townies. It’s dotage, over-eager but well-meaning, comes like a cleansing of the palette as it were for the hardened but friendly inhabitants who call this home. Anything more than about a ten percent chance of rain means, well, rain. Whatever ‘showers’ means elsewhere, in this place it is code for, Build ark and prepare thyself for an unforgiving shitload of vertical water and avoid umbrellas at all costs.

Tucked beneath the busy sky, layered mountains, and hungry sea lives a population reminiscent of a suburban Woodstock. Hippy loggers. Polite revolutionaries. Sidewalk artist news-junkies. Bag-ladies and street-dwellers with decent grammar. All of the above and us, the lone, traitorous Canadians living in Washington State trying to stumble our way around. That, with downtown streets twisting in corkscrew fashion in and out of side streets that double as alleyways that double as thoroughfares that smirk at our lostness. The roads, having been laid by drunken blind men in oneupmanship sprawl out like some wild, yet picturesque, game of snakes and ladders. Where the hell are those mountains anyway?

Those Canadians, famed for politeness, are the same ones who, upon noticing our Washington State license plate, find every way possible to angrily tailgate us into next week, regardless of our fifteen miles per hour over the speed limit. A worthwhile risk, apparently, to he who must teach a valuable lesson to these wayward American ne’er-do-wells. “But wait,” I inwardly screech, “I’m one of you.” To no avail. This is what Canadian “aggression” looks like. I meet the same guy at a red light and he’s all smiles and waves. Here in Canada, polite is but shorthand for passive-aggressive, a set-up for the inevitable near-clash of non-words.

The reason for this ascent into the murky badlands of Vancouver Island rainforest otherwise known as Nanaimo? To deposit (or abandon, depending on your perspective) our youngest son into the fray where he will begin Jazz Studies at Vancouver Island University (not an oxymoron, I assure you) and a new life figuring out the politics of labyrinthine Canadian niceties. He may have been born in Vancouver but he has spent fourteen of his eighteen years in America’s Pacific Northwest. He is the most American of anyone in our family, a family more Canadian than most Canadians.

The long love we’ve harbored (yes, I went there) for screeching gulls alighting on fishing boats, grumpy clouds bobbing over bouncing buoys, and a permanent smell of pulp laden damp help us navigate the darker waters of parentalisms. Small comfort indeed in the face of driving hundreds of miles away, the face of one’s youngest in the rearview mirror. Good thing I’m given neither to melodrama nor self-pity or I might find myself writing about it.

God forbid.

Photo found here