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.

And the music played on…

On June 23, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing Poetic2 Comments

The home of a neighbor of a close friend of ours recently burned to the ground. This is a tragedy of the worst kind for anyone. Moreover, it was a place that housed troubled adults. Although no lives were lost, a home and a hope, at least for a time, were.

Sing, little ones. Sing, for the music still plays on…

Strike up the chord from rubbled keys,

fill up your ears on scrawny knees,

push through your threadbare notes with ease,

let the music play on.

For good or ill the band still played,

Titanic-deck’d no songs fore-stayed,

reduced to ash and dust parade,

yet the music played on.

When all has shuttered up within,

let lonely hearts bestirred begin,

to harp, to trump, to violin,

for the music plays on.

And you, with your most treasured fears,

ensconced in burnt and golden tears,

a lilting note from God full cheers,

and the music played on.

“…and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God.” Isaiah 43:2-3

Look now, the broken road

On June 21, 2012June 22, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

A few months ago, as part of a Poetry Party on one of my favorite websites, www.abbeyofthearts.com, I submitted a poem entitled Look now, the blessed road. The theme? In praise of detours. It was received well enough that I thought of adding the yin to that yang. This latest poem illustrates the other part of our spiritual journey, that part full of dark uncertainty, ambiguity, doubt and even pain. Not as much fun to write about but necessary all the same…

Where footsteps once fell, proud and sure,

and met solid pavement with unwavering courage,

now there creeps, under guise of night

a pall, a weary and whimsical word of doubt.

The core of dreams once held aloft to sun-drenched hope

now hide, tucked in folds of fabric and crevice of stone.

Shiver and should, wither and would, careless and could;

the words of humbled discontent and self-abasement

foretell a morning not here, but night so stubborn.

Were it not for the taste of dust

one might mistake white for black, black for naught.

Sharp the shame of whispered this and promised that

when time stood still to salute my place.

Go, for now is not the time for talk or even willful gestures

betokening peace or grace or surety.

Let me drink from the bitter pond if only

to remember the taste of freedom.

Look away, don’t pretend that this one knows

or feels or sees as one should.

No, pray to the silent god, forgotten shadow of something greater.

But for all this, I can see someone lurking,

waiting, longing…for what, I do not know.

So then, here I will sit and wait for this well-known stranger

to, once again,

emerge.

June 21, 2012

Parking lot lost and found

On June 21, 2012June 22, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living2 Comments

I get lost easily. It’s funny to those who know me best, annoying and perplexing to me. Many is the time I’ve lost my way in the Safeway parking lot, often in an ungodly fog of non-Sunday-school language. After calming down from my diatribe on poor parking lot engineering I begin the pathetic process of self-flagellation that includes the obligatory inner harpy: “if you can’t even find your way out of the parking lot, how do you expect to find your way in the big, bad world with, like…roads ‘n stuff!?”

A case in point: last summer I was hurriedly making plans after a long and complicated week to drive to Cannon Beach, Oregon for a choral directors workshop. As I am wont to do, I left well before I really needed to since that’s what uptight, anal guys like me do. I was particularly proud of my packing prowess having narrowed down my weekly possessions to a single midsize suitcase…well, and my guitar of course…oh, and a bunch of books in a separate bag (not counting snacks, naturally). Being more concerned about early arrival than any other point of preparation I happily hit the road two hours ahead of schedule with the air condition blasting and the tunes blasting even more.

I crested the final hill from Yakima to Ellensberg from which the windmill and horse ranch dotted valley below spoke loudly of itself in multi-colored hue. I sailed past Ellensberg and was impressed with the reasonably well-flowing traffic on the ever-busy I-90 corridor to Seattle. Then, a few miles past the small mountain cowboy town of Cle Elum I hit the intestinal traffic jam with no hope of quick relief to the constipated bumper-to-bumper traffic.

No problem, I thought, I had left plenty early and was listening to a delightful conversation between Krista Tippet and poet/philosopher, John O’Donohue (listen here). I was enraptured and unhurried. Upon finishing the CD I figured a few cell phone calls might help pass the time. One of those was to my wife Rae, (who ironically, makes maps, more on that in my next post) and confidently boasted my ample progress despite poor traffic just past Cle Elum.

A lengthy pause.

“What the hell are you doing in Cle Elum?” she barked, apparently not as chuffed as I on my progress.

Another lengthy pause…

Then it dawned on me. I was in fact on the wrong road altogether!

My retort?

“Yeah, what the hell am I doing in Cle Elum?”

I am now the proud owner of a cool GPS unit that speaks to me in the smooth vocal tones of Sean Connery (snooty bugger) and, thanks to my wife and boys, seldom get lost anymore (please don’t tell them that I generally don’t know how to use it very well).

Sometimes we need road signs, GPS units, spouses, kids and friends to share the burden of our lostness. And the more I think of my proclivity toward directional retardation the more I am reminded of the spiritual parallels here. It’s no surprise that Jesus loved the lost and found metaphor and used it liberally. To be lost is one thing. To be lost and blissfully unaware of it is quite another. It is more sinister, not in the traditional heaven-hell, saved-damned dichotomies; but in the getting-warmer-getting-colder proximity meter as we seek union with God.

I hate the feeling of being lost or losing my sense of direction. But, to hear Connery’s comforting voice say those words I love to hear, “you have reached your destination, shaken, not stirred”, is the highway equivalent of these still better words…

“This one was lost and, now, is found.”

Triangle poems V

On June 20, 2012June 20, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing Poetic, Words...always wordsLeave a comment

Upstream

From the mouth of this river

I can see forever.

But just to see it

is not to know

the gifts it

can bring

me.

Downstream

From here I see what has past

from early dawn to dusk,

meandering stream

of hearts and minds

too broken

not to

feel.

Midstream

From here I can see the moon,

in all her bright glory.

But still I can’t see

what direction

this bright stream

will go

next.

Half-mast

Is it high or is it low?

Starboard bow or portside?

How are we to know

which direction

we are be’ng

led to

go?

Solitary

Here I sit in places, still,

with rhythms full of grace.

An occupied peace

and quiet voice

that summons

me to

stay.

Triangle Poems IV

On June 18, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing Poetic1 Comment

Uprooted

Hands unseen reach from elsewhere

to dig and pull and strip

what little else remains

to be troubling

the places

where life

is.

Replanted

Hands unseen reach from elsewhere

to dig and hold and place

newness green and fit

into rows of

strong and new,

wondrous

life.

Piercèd Wonder

Breached against a sullen sky

one wicked afternoon,

sad eyes behold the

piercèd wonder.

He saw them

and he

wept.

Resignation

First it was impossible,

then it was just painful.

Now it’s both painful

impossible

and troubling,

but it’s

done.

Peace

A most illusory thing,

is this thing we call “peace.”

Too tightly grasp and

it leaves faster.

Let it go,

and it’s

yours.

Leviticus, Lambs and all in All

On June 18, 2012June 19, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christianity, faith, spiritual formation, worship2 Comments

It is not generally my style to be a theological “shock-jockey” and I have no particular love for sacrificial triumphalism. Nor do I especially value our over indulgence in violent guilt offering atonement theories that merely perpetuate condemnation rather than permeate grace. I am, however, reading through Leviticus and made some profound connections between what the ancient Hebrews might have encountered and what a less ancient Hebrew once encountered to counter the former.

Take it.

Take it all.

Take it all and more, it was never mine to begin with.

All that was my all I sacrifice before the great All.

All that I thought was all I sacrifice before the great All.

My all can never be All unless given up for the all in All.

I flay these guiltless idol-beasts on the bloodstained altar of grace,

where all that is ever All once was.

This blood matches my own, this heart my own;

this pain my own, these eyes and innards my own.

This poor bleating one, shivering and afraid

with eyes askance and yet calm

foreshadows another Lamb

eviscerated for all that I have done-

ensconces all that I will be.

We are one because you have ordained it so.

These cultic rites and offerings weigh heavily upon me;

so labor intensive, so messy, so inconvenient, so…expensive.

Oh, I get it.

prayer of the man without sight

On June 17, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

So it is now to be, Lord,

that penance brings with it her own harder penance;

riddled throughout with pain, sweetly nuanced

with character like wine, red and melancholy and ripe?

Forsworn am I from joy so privily gotten

that, nestled deep in shallow places,

this hollowed out heart hallway, designed for

good and light and sweet,

lies overwrought, undone.

Paint has pealed from walls of these plastered eyes

inured to seeing what not to see.

I wish eyes and heart were unconnected.

For then, might I see.

Lord, tear out seeing eyes and replace them with blind

if only to remind me of what it was to see;

and then, blindly, to rejoice.

…and he said to him, “follow me”: a Litany

On June 16, 2012June 15, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, liturgy, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worship4 Comments

This litany grew out of a class I took as part of my master’s program….

How good it is whenever we leave all false agendas, desires, plans, schemes, thoughts – selves behind and obediently follow the Master without hesitation.