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.

Room for all

On By robertalanrifeIn Parables, Waxing Poetic2 Comments

This is my submission to Abbey of the Arts latest Poetry Party. The theme: Hospitality.

There is room for all at the fountain of life!


Let come who will to bathe or drink

these playful drops so cool, you think

“how lavish God does pour upon

this water’d life whose life He’s won.”

And though the edge of this lagoon

is busting, full of those who soon

will push and tear and force their way,

yet those who see can laugh, can play.

For wherever all are welcome, there

is space for all, both rough and fair.

God it is who will decide

the ones who choke out love with pride,

instead the pain’d and poor, invite;

together, let us dine tonight.

Photo courtesy of: Steven Elliott

 

 

 

 

Let it be quick

On By robertalanrifeIn Parables, Waxing Poetic4 Comments

Domestic violence is never an easy topic to address in any setting, let alone with poetry. And yet, where else should one seek to draw attention to the ugliness of the issue but through the beauty and precision of poetry? May these simple, unadorned words, reach into all of us and may we, together, be each others’ rescuers.

Let it be quick

The car screeches into the driveway, askew, radio blaring

and your hidden fears become visceral terror for what’s coming.

For hours now, neck craned, head cocked with ear against the door

your sweaty palms flat against the wall, you listen. Listen.

You flatten the wrinkles in your dress hoping against hope he sees;

he sees you,  not the face of his discontent, not the end game

of nights spent boasting of adventures never taken,

trysts only dreamed of in whiskey stupors,

of the feigned and faint glory days in High School hallway peacock parades.

“He doesn’t mean what he says”, you say.

“He’s just having a hard time right now”, you say.

“Oh, I just fell”, you say.

You agonize within, thinking tonight, just maybe, tonight…

he’ll see the girl who caused him to leave his hometown,

for you. Only you. Always you. That’s what he said at least.

You’ve parted your hair the way he likes

and even donned the Junior High barrette he insists is still sexy.

But as the door crashes open what little courage you’d mustered

scurries away like the mice living in your pantry.

And as the first fist comes, you pray:

“let it be quick.”

Waiting for the train

On By robertalanrifeIn Waxing Poetic6 Comments

Satisfied am I with the twisting melodies of yesterday’s yearning?

Driven am I to bedeck my mind in frivolities of yesterday’s learning?

Poking holes in theories ill-suited to soulish life

but still beholding too near my swollen strife.

* * *

Come what may, then, bestir what’s left of daytime’s faith

and mix it up and blend it till sweet to the taste.

Whirl these dervishing bedevilments and find the pearls made sand,

and make them pearls again – in heart, less than in hand.

* * *

Make the numbers match the math when teasing out the will

to sit, to silence all, the tongue, the words, and still

endure with me these acrid hours like waiting for the train

of hopeful dreaming coming soon, once more to love again.

Standing

On By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

Several weeks now have past

and troubles met and served up, last

like ham sandwiches and potato salad, cold;

you shudder to meet even one so bold.

They stare you down like cheetah with prey

and meet with eyes worn, disheveled and grey.

They pierce and stab, thrust and joust

your long-stem soul now sold, like Faust.

Perchance to seek, to try, to reach

for God knows what, these things, rare, teach

the lessons, ill-gained, that bring us round

to find once more our feet on the ground.

Satisfaction guaranteed

On By robertalanrifeIn Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

Marvel at the cost of such pedantry,

succumb to the vagaries of baubledom, hoofery, and chicane glaminosity.

The suit fits well, the shoes reveal the glib and jabber of your craft.

In your pocket you finger loose change,

rubbed together like shuffle and jump bumper cars.

See the shine he says.

Looks good on you, he says.

One last gander, he says, take it for a spin.

You check out the merchandise while he checks out yours

and, together, you strike the deal to deal the strike.

Inside it smells like an Alberta forest with a hint of cheap cologne.

Something doesn’t feel right, he switches feet too often,

hasn’t looked you in the eye, yet,

and talks faster than you can type.

But something about this impish clown ghetto pulls one hand to sign,

the other to wipe the sweat from your anxious brow.

This parade of top-down, convertible politics

sits in your gut like so much bad stew.

Need and want swap places and you sigh…

But in the end, your satisfaction is guaranteed.

After all, the payments won’t kill you,

but the possessions might.

 

Kill ’em all

On By robertalanrifeIn Parables, Waxing Poetic7 Comments

An obvious risk to such provocative pieces is their potentially divisive, incendiary nature. I post because I am compelled to write what I feel. But I do so in full recognition that what I feel stands in contradiction to what many others feel. Hence, with conviction but also humility, I post…

Yes please, describe for us your toxic, platinum dreams

you grumpy old men, front lawn savages and blue-haired fussbudgets

whose projected fears force our embroilments.

Like a bikini at a funeral you bluster and fidget

and point fingers with one syllable jeers, taunting of yesterday’s better standing.

Only then will we learn that the beach of our desires

doesn’t meet your death loving, tea ‘n sympathy standards.

You clink glasses with friends at darts, or grab ass in the elevator,

but turn a blind eye to a man on trial

because his head covering took away your comfort.

Wrap yourself in the flag for protection

from those sandy, bearded bastards who kill your friends killing them.

Then, with hand on heart, the right politics,

a cigarette tucked behind your ear, and misty-eyed blindness,

you look for ways not to look for ways.

Let’s help our kids by killing theirs.

Let’s build our future by robbing theirs.

Let’s pad our budgets while emptying theirs.

Let’s speak for us by silencing them.

We don’t need to love,

just kill ’em all.

That’s what Jesus would do.

Journaling Pinocchio

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, faith, spiritual formation6 Comments

I’ve tried many ways to be faithful to this idea. That is, the idea of “morning pages” that so many friends have engaged in for some time. Since 1985 I’ve been an avid journaller, earlier if you consider my voracious note-taking at any opportunity. They are now in stacks on various book cases throughout my home and act as reminders that life was even as life is. What was before may well come again. But, if journalled, it comes with warning signs. “Caution”, one’s history calls out, “you’ve seen this before, and didn’t do so well then. Let’s do better and learn from this.”

Now, unfortunately, life is anything but this cut and dried. I can count on one…finger the number of times I’ve actually gone back to dig, mine, learn, hell, even read old journals let alone allow them to guide my present course.

That is, until this year. Some particularly challenging summer events and subsequent darkness have forced me back to those journals. In fact, in a Herculean effort toward self-knowledge and understanding I have now finished reading my second book on the Enneagram. Am I a FOUR? A NINE? A TWO? A combination of these? How am I moving toward or away from integration?

Secondly, I am seeking to organize and codify these journals to help me reconstruct a cogent timeline of my life complete with possible patterns, trajectories, ideas, mistakes, etc. I’ve affixed post-it notes to the front of each journal indicating the start and end dates and then giving them an overall number: 1, 2, 3…all the way to 14. It seems I, like most, get easily stuck. Ruts like those left behind by Oregon Trail wagon wheels have made their indelible marks in my life and insistently make their reappearance at every turn.

But, I suppose, as frustrating as that is, to see one’s “ruts” is at least to become more self-aware. And, to see more is to have the smallest chance at changing more. We must see before we can move. As a recovering alcoholic this is a foundational truth. Step one is to admit to God and others that we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable. Many never make it to step one. Subsequent steps never happen without the first.

Therefore, as I sit writing in yet another forum for such self-discovery, I’m left to consider: will this be the magic place that sees actual transformation take place? Or, will this be just one more futile attempt at writing away my sins? Broken places have a way of remaining broken unless outside forces come to bear upon them. That’s God’s job.

My life task is to see; to look and recognize where those broken places might be and then, write them out. Pray them out. Cry them out. Scream them out. Swear them out. Whatever it takes to find that place of epiphany, of breakthrough when the compassionate hand of God, with one simple touch, makes all things new again. This is annoyingly easy for God, impossibly difficult for us. For me. To follow the path of self-contractor in matters of the soul is a sure recipe for disaster; for madness.

Nope, for me just to read these old journals is a breath of stale air that is becoming fresh and invigorating in the workshop of God’s grace. There it is that God is taking this spiritual Pinocchio and fashioning flesh from wood; bone, sinew, blood and skin – what I am becoming – from splinters of old trees spun and pressed into something I am not. That was Pinocchio’s single desire, to be a “real boy.”

Then, with this Disney picture firmly in mind, seated beside the recurring pictures gleaned from many old journals, this becomes my prayer:

“Gracious God, who fashions something out of nothing, life out of death, real out of unreal, take this wooden boy, made in love but inanimate, solid, unmoving and give the abundant life that is you. Grant your fluidity for my immovability. Grant your warm-blooded passion for my wooden heart, cold and hard. Grant your joie de vivre for my dour, sad, self-directed life. Cut the strings that pull and manipulate and make me dance a dance I am familiar with but hate. Replace them with the unction of your life-giving spirit that draws instead of pulls, leads instead of manipulates and loves where before there was only death. Lord, make me into a real boy. To your glory.”

night

On By robertalanrifeIn Waxing Poetic2 Comments

Winking past benighted minions

still and soft, she glides away.

Severed light pushed off her pinions,

for she had nothing left to say.

***

Dark her bosom, darker forming,

full of starry, whiteling lights;

perched atop the scalp of morning,

waits for courage to ignite.

***

Now to find the peace so wanting,

till we are awake again,

sleep bejewels our hearts unflaunting,

send us now thy rest, our friend.

On By robertalanrifeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

My last reblog for awhile. This one is early. I had just started my master’s degree and was still giddy and bleary-eyed.

robertalanrife's avatarinnerwoven

On August 28th, 2008, I began a journey 20 years in the making – I started my Master’s degree. What am I studying? I’m glad you asked. I am taking a Master of Arts in Spiritual Formation and Leadership. It is an online degree through Spring Arbor University in Michigan. Responses I’ve received have ranged from mild curiosity to deep fascination to turned up noses! So, why that and why now? Again, thanks for asking.

A favorite Rife family rock band, U2, wrote a chart topping song in the 80’s called, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. Since Bono, their lead singer, was widely known to be a Christian, they received much bad press from the church for not speaking in more definitive terms about their experience of faith. However, it was something deeper that he was singing about. Like Bono of U2, ever since…

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On By robertalanrifeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

I first posted this in October of last year. One year later, I reblog. Dig in…

robertalanrife's avatarinnerwoven

Around this time last year, I took time for spiritual refreshment in Ocean Shores. What follows are a few of my thoughts on that time away…

It is surprising just how many toxins build up in our spirits when we neglect regular periods for silence, solitude and spiritual refreshment. What an affront to our self-referentialism to discover that the world has gotten along famously without our invaluable contributions. Nevertheless, it remains an immensely challenging undertaking to willingly disengage for a few days in order to re-engage the deeper things – God and those archetypal realities of our meager existence.

My house stands in need of significant repair, my wife deserves my attention, my sons need a father and my employer needs me to make the trains run on time. To retreat from our responsibilities requires our brazen intention to be vulnerable before God with no guarantee of visible returns on…

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