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.

I hate waiting

On December 1, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formationLeave a comment

I don’t wait well. Wow, what a stupid and obvious way to begin an Advent blog post. Since I’ve begun this foray into a rather universal bugaboo and done so at that time of year when nothing fresh could possibly be said about the topic, I might as well carry on.

I am one who cannot abide rifts between friends, jagged edges in places where, with a little faith and work, the rough places could be made smooth; broken bridges to reunite two sides of a single stream.

I am told that I am particularly good at defusing conflict. What these same people are too polite to mention, however, is that I’m equally good at creating it. Be that as it may, I apparently have a gift for big picture thinking, peaceful words toward potentially peaceable outcomes.

Damn it.

Ironically (tragically, if you ask me), those who are called peacemakers generally hate conflict more than any others. Hence, the very gifts with which we’re saddled are just that, burdens to be borne more than wings upon which to fly through the mêlée.

I run at the first sign of even a hint of conflict. When they come, I am more unsettled than anyone but, when the time is ripe, the field of battle well-lit and ready, and the stands full of naysayers and side-takers, I will enter the fray, weak in the knees and, with dry mouth, stutter words of “now, imagine how this might be better.”

I’ve had a reasonable rate of success at this. But what about those times of waiting in which no amount of resourcefulness, faith, seeking, pain or bag-‘o-tricks seems enough? When does one say that to wait is no longer a reasonable option? When do we finally reach the point of no return? The statute of limitations on someone’s good promises? The place where it appears waiting was a bad idea to begin with?

Meet a battle-weary, time-scarred, now largely apathetic Israel who only say they’re waiting for the “coming Messiah.” After such a long absence, why bother arousing hope in that which perhaps was a cosmic ruse to begin with? God’s just playin’ around, testing our mettle. Like me, their best approaches, clearest study, best thinking, most robust faith…are for naught. To wait anymore is, well, just a waste of the necessary energy required to just get along.

This was the environment into which “in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son.” It’s always the environment that God’s Son is most forthcoming. When we can no longer take credit for our astonishing acts of faithful waiting, God comes.

I hate waiting. God loves that because the Gospel of grace, the ultimate peacemaking enterprise, was, is and always will be God’s gig.

Let this Advent be a time of giving up futile fights and endlessly moribund conflicts. Submit to God’s higher waiting; that which is dependent not on our patient endurance, but on God’s perfect track record at keeping promises.

Pics here and here, respectively

For prayers of thanks, we give thanks

On November 27, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Uncategorized2 Comments

One could say I’m being a lazy blogger by simply reblogging my Thanksgiving piece from last year. One could. But one won’t because I still believe these things as strongly this year. Blessed Thanksgiving to one and all.

innerwoven

Gracious God, giver of all good things,

for arising this day to draw breath, we give thanks.

For enough mental acuity to express gratitude, we give thanks.

For the sunrise’s early resplendent shout of morning, we give thanks.

For the passage of time, from then to now to then, we give thanks.

For a body capable of that which we consider essential, we give thanks.

For the car heater slowly blasting frost from the windshield, we give thanks.

For the car, a heater and a windshield, we give thanks.

For the long, protective arms of God, the windshield of our lives, we give thanks.

For the choice to wear clothing not made by little Filipino girls chained to a desk, we give thanks.

For the sight required to read what we write, we give thanks.

For the ability to read what we see, we give thanks.

For an education that…

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A Sunday Prayer

On November 24, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation3 Comments

Truthful One,

why do we start as something,

give others the impression that that something

is our true something-ness when in truth

we are something much different indeed?

Living One,

what is the starting place of our deepest self?

When living day to day, how do we know

we’re giving to others that which

comes from living places and not from dead places

merely adorned with glitter and trinkets to make them appealing?

Serving One,

where are the lines drawn between obligation and self-respect?

When does serving another embezzle their need

to capably discover their own inner strength?

When does such a question even matter –

if at all?

Shining One,

how can the coal dust accumulating on my layered soul

be removed to reveal the sheen of love,

framed in hope, birthed of grace that you see?

That I see in my better moments?

Holy One,

I speak no more.

Instead, speak, for your servant is listening.

scattered in ashes of light

On November 23, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

there you were scattered in ashes of light

outside of time’s ballooning source

the triadic perfection of unanimous singular gaze

eloping with butterflies light on the sill

and I am loving your loving our loving

there are no more songs fit to sing

where you lay dreaming your hair unyielding

to the moon held at bay too dim for your eyes

a cool and stut stuttering night bares her dark breasts

and draws herself up to tuck in the spindly stars

who point their bony fingers toward my love

still scattered in ashes of light

Picture this

15 Things Jesus Didn’t Say

On November 20, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Uncategorized3 Comments

This was my first visit to Jim’s blog. It was that good I felt it necessary to hang it out here a bit, too. Enjoy. I sure did.

Jim Palmer

15 things Jesus Didn’t Say:

“For God was so disgusted with the world and you that he gave his one and only Son.”

“I have come to bring you a new religion.”

“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have correct theology.”

“If anyone would come after me, let him disparage all other religions and their followers.”

“If you love me, you will regularly attend a church of your choice… within reason.”

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This Holy Skin

On November 15, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing Poetic4 Comments

This is a piece originally posted on my innerwoven blog on August 28th of last year. I thought I’d post it here, too. You know, for fun…

We stand and crane our necks

reaching for heaven’s bright smile,

upon shoulders of brown and moving green,

and in the act forget ourselves as one and there and good.

Made from unmade to make again,

these arms outstretched with fingers hoping

to touch the air and the unseen,

we hope for less than our skin suggests.

And yet, in this, there is no shame

since we ourselves are of the dust – rooted,

embranched and gnarled but numinous and whimsical

as the clouds and rain.

To escape from this is not as good

as other fingers poised to touch,

to show what we weren’t looking for…

ourselves, God’s fingerprints smudged

on the pane of humanity,

in the humanity of our pain-

on us.

Having sung with the choir – an evening examen

On November 14, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing Poetic4 Comments

Having sung with the choir, this evening’s venture

brings light to the night and a dark covering of

powdered stillness descending, descending still

upon these battered brows. Hear, O hear

the silver notes, sliding out from cleaving tongues

pressed up against our cheeks, the very cheeks

now flushed and warm with the post-song glow of

happy hearts. O Dancing One, how lightly you move,

alight and glide where clumsy old oafs yet banished in

the wooden feet of sin are forced but to watch.

But watch we will until, our laces loose,

we cast off iron shoes, and at last

our feet fall in time with yours.

Tonight, our songs have burrowed into

heads prepared for pillows,

hearts prepared for love,

eyes prepared for sleep,

souls prepared for eternity,

and voices prepared to sing once more the songs

that wonder.

Photo found here

I-You-Holy Ground

On November 9, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing Poetic2 Comments

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.

Poetry: rebuilding the world through the un-wasted beauty of redemptive syntax, cont.

On November 3, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Music and the arts, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

When, as a boy, I was expected to be cleaning my room, doing homework, weeding the garden or any of a host of other chores, I would more often than not be listening to music in my room. Or, perhaps I’d be teaching myself to sing like Robert Plant or Burton Cummings or Dan Fogelberg. I might have been writing music once I got to Junior High School or touring as a musician by the time I was a senior in High School. Suffice it to say, art, music, poetry – literature in general has shaped my life and provided many hours of delight and avoidance. It’s the mirror into which I’ve learned to see my own face. It’s also the looking glass through which I’ve learned to see others.

Music and poetry can become for all of us an answer to our disheveled hatreds, our worn out prejudices, our tired judgements and our need for a language with which to say, I see you.

Traveling light in serpentine winds

Traveling light in serpentine winds

this haughty craft, held aloft, sequestered

inside hints of journey’s end.

***

Earth’s edges, blunter now but rippled and dented,

provide the places safe to sing

the bawdy songs of youth, sung too soon, before

the second hand is wasted on the whirling clock.

****

Were it anything more than salvageable

solitudes, trapped in their dusty orbs,

such voices might bloat to consume me,

dine on my liver with older words,

rich but thick and unchartered.

*****

So then, forage I shall for colors unmuted,

songs yet without voice, paths full-trod, seen with

eyes withholding nothing but a flute and a scalpel.

One to begin, the other to end

the sharper edges of this catastrophic

beauty – this undulating goodness.

******

I think I’ll take a walk.

Poetry: rebuilding the world through the un-wasted beauty of redemptive syntax, cont.

On October 30, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing Poetic, Words...always wordsLeave a comment

There is a darker underbelly to our lives we tend to ignore, to our peril. It might be said that we don’t find our lives. Our lives find us. And, when they do, it’s not always with a welcome and a click of the heels. Life can storm upon us, raging and lusting for more than its fair share of pain and woe. What we do with these tumultuous moments ultimately defines who we are becoming. They also birth great words if we let our pencils down from the rafters.

Hear the words of Rainer Maria Rilke:

What we choose to fight is so tiny!

What fights with us is so great!

If only we would let ourselves be dominated

as things do by some immense storm,

we would become strong too, and not need names…

This is the next piece in my foray into meta-poetry.

You hide under the precipice of your own misdeeds,

your miscalculations act as the belt around

the pants of your own shame.

Here, the rains can’t come.

Here, the foes of restraint and full-plumed capacity