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.

The Smile of God

On By robertalanrifeIn Waxing Poetic2 Comments

For all those whose cruciformity brings light to dark places, hope to bleak places and promise where there is none. God sees.

 

Dark and insistent the vultures come,

descending on unsuspecting lives.

Ripping and tearing this salty flesh,

distraught, disturbed, disjointed,

carrion fuel, bespattered spiritual spoil.

 

Stand your ground, oh lovers of day.

Plant the scarecrows of virtue,

your unmoving brokenness,

your gleaming dark,

your song of voiceless vagabonds.

 

Though preyed upon, yield not

your hidden beauty, prayed upon

with stubbornly sanguine faith.

Though experience tells you to run,

love bids you stay.

 

As blood is bridge built from richest vein,

so their sightlessness becomes our sight.

As the corners of simple garments

heal deep wounds and clothe

the healer, so the faceless ones become

in an instant –

the smile of God.

Choices

On By robertalanrifeIn Waxing Poetic4 Comments

Challenged in polite embrace

she mocks her fear

and removes her sunglasses.

When the sun comes

and light arrives,

even blindness is better

than apathy and

two good eyes.

blind girl

Photo: www.rapgenius.com

Blind

On By robertalanrifeIn Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

wilted flowers

Adorned in the jewels

of another man’s life,

there stirs within

the hymn to strife.

*

Its hollow notes relieve

dead eyes from sight,

the requirements of love

that abandon stars to night.

*

Fools on stringless harps,

the orchestra of songless space

produce the music, not of spheres,

but of notes that stones replace.

*

As one dares eyes not to see

a feeding trough of dead flowers,

here the blindness is complete,

trading one’s life for another’s power.

Photo: www.srpsj.wordpress.com

Haiku at 30,000 feet

On By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

from the airplane window

Photo: www.photographyblogger.net

*

Sitting in straight rows

we stare at tiny screens

lonely, together

*

She screams so loudly.

It’s been almost ten minutes.

At least she’s with Dad.

*

He covers her up,

a blanket for his lady,

his fifty-year wife.

*

Thirty thousand feet,

two wings, spread across the sky,

and potential friends.

*

My destination?

Wherever this airplane flies.

Up, apparently.

*

Some food would be nice.

I’ve had four bags of pretzels.

Oh, and some peanuts.

*

Why do they like me?

Sprightly lithe and prancing gents

think I’m something else…

Undone – a prayer

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation9 Comments

prayer

I’ve been taking a break from my series, “Reflections on Faith and Art” to bring some other stuff important to me right now. Prayer is close to the top of that list. Granted, writing, specifically poetry, is a contemplative prayer practice, I’ve always found the writing of prayers themselves to be, well, prayer. Here is one I posted to Facebook that seemed to bless. Hence, I thought I’d bring it here in the hope that it blesses a few more. Shalom, dear friends.

Lord, show me a place to tie the ends

that beg to be braided into multiple strands

joined in singular purpose.

Lift the fog enough to see the edges of solidity,

and fray the ends of cords I only think I need

to tie my world together.

Unleash into my presumptive skies

the birds of purgation carrying with them

twigs and branches for the task.

Let me author the story of my own demise

if through my disappearance you fill

someone else’s stifling horizon.

Swell in the hopeless heart

a future of light through my abiding darkness.

Write someone else’s story

complete with satin ending on gilded pages

torn from the tattered book of my tired, half-written tale.

Finish others by my incompletion.

Airbrush another life

with the melted crayons of my own.

Sing another’s song

with notes plucked from my own

unfinished symphony.

Make yourself heard in the silence of my song.

Art As A Work Of Life: A Guest Post by Janet C. Hanson

On By robertalanrifeIn Beauty, Christian spirituality, literature, music, poetry, sacramental living, spiritual formation, the artsLeave a comment

It’s not that I’m a snob, although some might disagree. Nor is it that I’m lazy, although others might disagree. I simply haven’t had guest posts as often as I should. With this offering by blogger, Janet C. Hanson, I’d like to change that. When she posted this and it found its way into the internet aether, it was pounced upon quickly like hungry birds to a free meal, tossed around, shared and shared again. She’s insightful and warm and wise and witty. You know, kinda like me (as I am in my bios).

Originally posted on April 30, 2013 by Janet Hanson

A l’oevre on reconnâit l’artisan. You can tell an artist by his handiwork. ~French proverb

painting-of-woman-writing

“You can make art or make a product. The two are very different.”

My art teacher, Randy Blasquez, shared the quote on her blog. The context was art and love. “Why doesn’t love come across when you look at a painting? Because it wasn’t put into the painting! The artist was pleasing the gallery or trying to sell.”

How much of your life is spent trying to please the gallery?

The books on writing, the books on art, the books on living life to the full, all agree: Skill matters, but love is essential in any work of art.

I think you would like my writer’s group. Around the word-slinging circle you’ll find a Whitman’s Sampler of styles. We take turns being the discouraged, remind me why I am doing this member, or, less often, the poster child for astounded success. I’ve learned by watching these women wrestle with their art. Things like,

  • A good writer is generous. They bleed their fears, doubts and delights all over the page, with nothing held back for later.
  • A good writer refreshes. They peer into the fog and refuse to blink until they notice a reason for hope.
  • A good writer lights the way. With words gripped by ink-stained fingers they draw us from the dark.

Bad writing may sell books, but readers are left in shadow. A bad life may look successful, but the world is left just as dim.

Art As A Work Of Life

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:10

Together, we are God’s handiwork.

Does your story prove that it’s true?

Generous, refreshing, bearer of light, are we changed by the reading of you?

Every day, we’re given a choice–to be just another product, shaped by the world, or let God shape his image in us.

Where have you noticed God’s artistry at work in your life?

Find out more about Janet and her wonderful material here.

Back to harbour

On By robertalanrifeIn Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

And so she trades her sail for still

her wake for windless waiting.

But at least her harbour’d

solitude brings with it

many stories.

in the harbor

Picture: www.old-picture.com

Bagpipes

On By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing Poetic1 Comment

bagpiper

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes rise like smoke

choking out all others

with the rough hands

of time and tragedy.

Their beautiful hums

sing a sustained song,

peering with insistent gaze

into hearty souls

and soulish hearts.

Broken teeth still chatter

with the bite of loss

and the taste of pain.

But this broad sound

rises to the occasion

like no other.

A land, many times stolen,

is the only crucible fit

to shape this enduring

roar, this brutish beauty.

She, soaked in brine of peat

and multicolored limbs,

snorts in stoic disregard

for all that dares

impede the moorish march

of belief in yesterdays.

Any old fool can pose

a lust for tunish repast

‘round doilied tables of tea and greed,

disgust of the rich, the divas of demand.

Not this sweet savage,

not this tumble down lullaby

haunt of kings, joke of ghosts.

In her misty-eyed song

you’ll find no sorrys,

just a jolly lament

and the bittersweet ceilidh

of the lost.

Sing along…if you dare.

Picture: www.bagpipers.com  (my kinda website!)

Conundrum (or the best realization available to one unable to see)

On By robertalanrifeIn Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

little child

I don’t see it.

You said I would,

but I can’t.

Am I blind,

or are you a liar?

Or have we both

been misled?

Do I ask

too many questions,

or do the questions

ask too much

of me?

old lady

Little girl picture: www.jen-elise.blogspot.com

Old lady picture: www.brokelyn.com

Beannacht (Blessing)

On By robertalanrifeIn Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

John O'Donohue

As I’ve mentioned about a thousand times, I’m possessive of a deeply Celtic, mystical spirit and as such, am drawn to others of similar ilk. Irish Catholic poet, writer and Hegelian philosopher, John O’Donohue (1956-2008) is one such kindred spirit. At the risk of sounding crass, to read O’Donohue is to make love with words. His facility with nuance, the numinous and near, the transcendent and tame, of the thin places of the world is second to none.

The following piece is one of my favorites. I’ve used this in liturgy many times and return to it on almost any occasion just to speak the words that, in themselves, bless in the saying of them. Read it once quietly. Read it twice more quietly. Read it out loud a third time. Finally, let it read you.

Then, wait. You will not be disappointed.

Beannacht

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,                                                                                                      
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

Ireland

Picture: www.garyverderamo.com