For prayers of thanks, we give thanks

On November 22, 2012November 22, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, liturgy, sacramental living, spiritual formation12 Comments

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 teaches us both, we give thanks.

For access to readable materials from a host of perspectives, we give thanks.

For the eccentric, aging gentleman seated across from me, we give thanks.

For his freedom to wear a skirt and knee-high boots without fear of imprisonment, torture or death, we give thanks.

For the olfactory senses that bless our nostrils with the smell of our coffee, we give thanks.

For the ready availability of coffee and other non-essential niceties, we give thanks.

For those who work more hours than we can imagine to procure said niceties, we give thanks.

For those who wage spiritual warfare against the forces of hate and injustice, we give thanks.

For the choice to do the same, we give thanks.

For your sovereignty over both, we give thanks.

For your inexplicable love for those who wage war and injustice, we give thanks.

For your expectation of our similar love, we give thanks.

For your willingness to get us there, we give thanks.

For the attitude necessary to give thanks, we give thanks.

Morning Prayer

On October 19, 2012October 19, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worship2 Comments

Dear God in heaven,

you dwell equally on either side of Eden

and help us find our place as people of a new day.

Lord most high, we celebrate you this morning.

We celebrate your great love for all creation.

We celebrate your compassion shown to us in the face of Jesus, your son.

We celebrate that, in his name,

we are adopted into the family of heaven and given all the benefits

of living in the unapproachable light of your peaceable kingdom.

We celebrate, today as every day that,

when we were still in the darkness of sin, Jesus came to lift us out.

And more than that, he came to spend his life among we who are lowly, base, uneven, crass, needy-

revealing what kingdom life was intended to be.

* * *

We worship you today, Lord,

not out of obligation but because our hearts are compelled to do so out of love.

* * *

We worship, today, Father,

because you did not leave us to die in our sin or drown in our pain,

but in compassion, you revealed yourself and your desires for us by means of your sacrificial gift in Jesus.

* * *

We worship you, Jesus,

because you willingly gave all you had to give and more that we might live and more abundantly.

By your life you provide an iconic picture

into the dangerous and beautiful collision of heaven and earth.

* * *

We invite you, Holy Spirit,

to lead us deeper into this kingdom life and into that fellowship with God we so eagerly desire.

Refresh our souls like the morning dew resting lightly on grasses fit for holy feet.

Amen.

Picture courtesy of bobhostetler.blogspot.com

Evening Prayer

On October 17, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, faith, life together, liturgy, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worship1 Comment

Loving Lord, our God and friend,

we dwell securely, enfolded deep within the fabric of your love,

and in the community of lovers who share your name and know your voice.

Though we fail so often, we yet seek to be that community of love,

hinted at whenever we come by faith into your holy presence.

We come not in haughty or vain spirits but in humility

for we acknowledge that every good and perfect gift is from above,

coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,

who does not change like shifting shadows.

You chose to give us birth through the word of truth

that we might be a kind of first fruits of all you’ve created.

And so, dear Lord, we bring nothing to you other than our smallness

into the enveloping presence of your powerful grace which changes our lives, making us new;

refreshing us with light and love, forgiveness and wholeness.

We are children, safe in the arms of the God who is to us both Father and Mother,

friend, confidante, grace-giver, sustainer and Saviour.

Walk with us this evening, oh God, as we seek to find you here among us.

Help us to hear your voice speaking, reminding us that, in you, there is a place to call home.

Through Christ Jesus, lover of our soul.

Amen.

Robert Rife, 2002

Journaling Pinocchio

On October 10, 2012 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.”

Glimpses VII: the blessing of obscurity

On September 23, 2012September 23, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, faith, music, sacramental living, spiritual formation, the arts12 Comments

I’m a musician. A fairly good one I suppose, if I believe my own press. I’ve had at least nominal success at performing, writing, recording, arranging…the gamut really. It feels good whenever someone notices my ability. Really good. I have learned how to revel in a good compliment without either sidestepping it to the embarrassment of the one offering it or, by contrast, basking in it to the chagrin of those who then have to live with me.

I am (or so I’m led to believe) an Enneagram FOUR. The Individualist. Fours, when describing ourselves, are compelled to do so with more articulation, wit, sophistication and joie de vivre than the last FOUR who just described herself. We have to make a splash, an entrance of swishing haberdashery, groove, and devil may care cool that at once attracts attention but with just a hint of nonchalance to avoid inauthenticity or scorn. That way, we get both the notice of the entrance and the respect in spite of it. I call it the spirituality of swagger. It is the spiritual equivalent of the hip, there-to-be-seen, Starbucks cultural attaché. And it is temptingly indispensable for we artsy types.

Professional music ministry has figured into my journey for a number of years now. And, despite frequent boatloads of stress, they have been a gift beyond all telling. They have not, however, been the shiny, mist-around-the-edges trip to bountiful I’d hoped they might be. Probably for the best since, to know the truth ahead of time would pretty much empty the ministry of other foolish mortals such as I.

Since I’m waxing personal here, I am forced to admit that, rooted deep in much of my early ministry, was ambition pure and simple; a lust for high profile face time (places everyone, jazz hands, show me some sizzle). Of course, I would choose other language to describe it (I’m humbled to use my gifts in praise to God, and yes, I’ll sign that CD). The paid ministry gig would often pose as a front for whatever ambitious projects I was hungrily involved in that might otherwise guarantee even greater notice. In retrospect, ministry, at times, laundered my budding recording-performing career. That’s not to say that I was some kind of narcissistic monster. I performed the tasks of my call to the best of my ability and with as much love to which I was then privy.

While I was busily involving myself in as many satisfying ‘yeses’ as I could, God was pulling back the covers from my spirit, hitherto hidden and insufficiently tended. I was exploring my talent for music, creating, writing and leading alongside of God, insistently laying bare the deep wounds of my soul, a process yet ongoing.

The last few years have been (not entirely unwanted) a descent into obscurity, deconstruction, geographical isolation, and, to quote Henri Nouwen, “downward mobility”…and a boat-load of healing.

This has meant many things; concessions of a sort to the broader context of God’s work on my interior life. For example, I love overcast skies, rain, damp, shiny streets on dark mornings when, jogging, I can see my breath and smell the biosphere.

We live in the desert.

I love to gig and have done so for decades. Yakima has a tiny, struggling Indie music scene barely within anyone’s peripheral vision. I love all things eclectica; the strange, the eccentric, the anything wannabes and the rigorous interplay of opposing cosmo-political entities. We dwell in a town with few international restaurants of note and a rather simple demographic of whites and Hispanics.

I love the jaunty tête-à-tête so readily available in more left-bank Bohemian locales. I live and move among honest, hard-working, conservative, salt-of-the-earth types who could care less about my recent forays into metaphysical ontology, apophatic theology or Dostoevsky (apparently, I’m a socialist, a moniker I only half-heartedly deny). They have served me and my family tirelessly, supporting me in spite of my innumerable eccentricities. That is better than all the fame one can own.

(A few precious friends)>

That which has postured as my life – panting, and out of breath – is slowly giving way to the more subtle, softly glowing embers of God’s gentle fire. I cannot in good conscience suggest that I no longer strive after validation or acclaim. Any shreds of real confidence, lasting relationships and consistency in my life have been attained through profound pain, multiple failures, (I add for emphasis: multiple) and forgottenness. These have been God’s preferred tools in adding leaven to the dough of my expanding soul.

Ambition and notoriety are deadly to the spiritual life. Exaltation is never to be our goal. Jesus promised it only through the more difficult way of humility, a path better defined by wood and nails than monitors and stage make-up. The restfulness and routine of life in obscurity I have embraced these days, gratefully. Nowadays, I’m plenty happy reading, writing or composing in my living room chair than I am anywhere more grandiose. For from here, I can hear…sacred whispers, most of which make no sense to me, but which shadow me everywhere and, rather strangely, guide me. I can honestly say that, this blessing of smallness has revealed the face of God and it is horrifying in its beauty.

Now, I must excuse myself. I need to check my blog stats…; – ]

Glimpses VI: peering into the abyss

On September 4, 2012September 16, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, faith, sacramental living, spiritual formation7 Comments

A truth many of us would rather not face is what I will call “lostness.” St. John of the Cross speaks at length of the dark night of the soul in his classic by the same name. But, since I’m not St. John, or perhaps saint anything, and my understanding of such things is limited, allow me to share my own rudimentary gleanings.

I’ve often mused that, if a person can say with confidence they are in a dark night, they’re not yet in a dark night. Nasty and ghoulish perhaps, but not what I mean by lostness. Dark means just that. Light has gone. Dark has come replacing sure steps with foundering ones. A way forward succumbs to guess work or less. Destinations become forgotten in a haze of bumping into walls not of our own choosing and which we cannot see anyway. As such, we lose not only orientation but the reasons for our non-whereabouts. Soon, we lose hope that light will come again and, at its worst, lose the desire and ability to see life as anything but one’s present bleak experience.

I am told that in situations of torture, people will sustain terrible beatings and then are placed in dark cells for weeks at a time. Painful sensory overload is replaced by unspeakable deprivation and loneliness. The non-existence experienced in these holding periods becomes even worse for the victims and they literally yearn to be beaten again. At least something is happening. Besides, even bad company means we’re not alone, the worst of all punishments.

Such is the lost-ness of lostness. Ostensibly, this is where God does God’s best work on the soul. When the senses have vacated their steadying influence and only a hollowed out vacuum remains, we are left with but one choice: believe anyway…or not. The sheer pointlessness of it all needs to sink into our being in order for us to be stripped of our need for pin-point accuracy in all our dealings. God alone rules here for, alone, there is only God. For we do not exist. Or so it seems. It is both the worst and the best thing God ever does in the human soul. A sweet cruelty, the pangs of which remain indelibly etched within.

A particularly poignant biblical picture of how best to weather such places of struggle is the aching repartee of Jesus with his Father in the garden of Gethsemane. The king of the ages, a long way from anything that was home, has just gotten comfortable with this broken, mortal coil. He loves us but is now asked to give it all up. For something even far worse. Perhaps with little idea of what “to be raised on the third day” might actually mean.

What is the intended result? In time, an eternity to us, a wink to God, we become shining trophies of grace. Not shiny like cheap flea market brass trinkets. But the rich, robust pewter and silver serving trays fit for royalty. The fickle fetters of sense and emotional agility that throw us under the bus when we’re not looking have now bowed to a deeper well. Unseen, but oh so quenching.

But not before we do a lot of fist shaking, weeping and finally giving up. That’s when rescue is sweetest.

Prayer of one who is lost

Hello…anyone,

can I call you God? or god? or what?

I am sick. My soul is sick and I am crushed.

Are you there? If you are, are you good?

Are you to be trusted?

Are you the one I should be looking for or do I wait

for someone else? something else? somewhere else?

How much does guilt, shame, blame

fortify this place of thick, impenetrable walls?

Am I wise or even smart to hope when all I see is

blackness; sorrow draped in the sickly posture of dreams forgotten,

of light full shaded?

Do not speak to me of Job like the others.

He is a fairy-tale, a mockery to me,

a dream of dust and ancient woes

far removed from this Halloween of hellish delight.

He does not speak anymore and,

unlike his, my book has an ending yet undecided,

murky, unmoving like a lake long dead.

Perhaps no ending will come at all?

Perhaps there is no book?

Picturesque dreams no longer peek into sleep otherwise uninterrupted.

A mind instead, in broken time, refuses better context,

mocking lost memories of what I once thought was life.

When a heart bitterly refuses whatever comfort felt like,

to what do I cling? Is this to be my rebellion? My condemnation?

Am I headed for hell because of these questions?

Because, frankly,

the questions are hell enough.

For what it’s worth,

help me through one more day, this day,

if indeed there still is such a thing.

* * * * *

Is this you right now? What practices might be helpful as you and God seek to navigate this dark time?

Do you have a support system in place? Others who can be co-sojourners with you?

Share some of your own dark night experiences.

This Holy Skin

On August 28, 2012August 28, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, literature, poetryLeave a comment

Since dividing up my writing into two separate blogs, my other blog: www.robslitbits.com has received all of the poetry. I think that unfair, don’t you? Hence, I give you…

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.

Glimpses V: learning self-love through self-knowledge

On August 21, 2012September 6, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation2 Comments

“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.”

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

-Jesus

* * * * * *

The most genuine love we can show those around us is to nurture self-love. If this sounds narcissistic, hold your judgment and read on.

I’ve been forced lately to consider some rather disconcerting truths about myself. I often feel a little squirmy stopping to glance in the soul-mirror longer than the space between songs on my iPod playlist. But, to crack our spiritual eggs, God has to play hardball before we smell the omelette of his presence wafting through our life’s kitchen. And, let’s be honest, we generally don’t learn any other way.

The twelfth century French abbot, Bernard de Clairvaux, believed self-love for the sake of God to be the highest of all since it is the best revelation of God’s fingerprint in us and guarantees we have no projections toward or pretensions against which we might wrongly see God. My point is this: self-love develops from a basis of self-knowledge. Lately, one tool God has been using in this process is the “Enneagram” as developed in two books on the subject, The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Riso and Hudson and The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective by Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert.

For years now friends have suggested, either openly or subliminally, that I take a look.

A close look.

It’s alright, we’ll wait…

Isn’t it funny how those we know best actually know us better than we do ourselves? Nosy buggers. Obviously they’ve seen something I have yet to see or just haven’t turned to face yet.

In recent years I’ve adopted a greater willingness for such loving intrusions into my psychic space. Why not? It’s going to get dealt with one way or another, right? Why not do it through the more supportive way of loving community? As Rohr makes clear in his book, how we interact with others will contribute to and be impacted by those incremental movements toward union with God.

Let me try to unpack this a bit. For those unfamiliar with the Enneagram, it is an ancient, pre-Christian tool used by the Desert Fathers, medieval Sufi mystics and a host of others in determining the nine primary “Essences.” In Christian spirituality, it was used to help identify our core sins; those pitfalls in each of us that deny wholeness and integration.

The authors are careful to point out that there are bits of all of these in each of us. The freedom comes however in discovering which number, and its accompanying “capital sin”, that best describes our struggle toward self-awareness and it’s end, self-love.

In my case, not one, but two numbers did a brazen Fosbury Flop off the page and down my throat with hurricane-like insistence. I seem to be both a glittering, off-the-charts FOUR (defined as “the need to be special”, or The Individualist), and a cozy, kumbaya NINE (“the need to avoid pain”, or The Peacemaker). Either way it has forced me to address my overriding need to be everyone’s center of attention but not so much that it messes with my “chi.” Whenever I’m not the dinner table centerpiece I will force my way there or look for better prospects.

The flip side however, or my NINE-ishness, denies me full entrance into that hallowed place since, to be there, means the potential for failure, or worse…success, neither of which I care to deal with. Avoidance is my chosen modus operandi. I am good at it.

Very good.

Want to come live with me? Didn’t think so. I wouldn’t either.

It is particularly challenging for guys like me to be “just a part of the pack” when we crave peaceableness, beauty, balance and blustery goodness everywhere we go. How, then, do I also ensure ample amounts of praise, attention and pats of approval on my needy crown? God forbid that I don’t stand out somehow; that I’m not just a little hipper, a little funnier, a little more talented or good looking or profound than the rest. When that happens I ratchet it up a notch to achieve the desired result, often with disastrous consequences. And, to complicate matters, the peacemaker in me loves to live vicariously through whoever happens to be the most interesting or inspiring person in the room, the very person I’m trying to be! Aah, just the way I like it, a confusing nightmare of complexity!

Thanks to the Enneagram, among other things, I am inching closer toward self-knowledge. The self-love part? Not so easy. People tell me they’re not mutually exclusive. At times I have my doubts however as my eyes open ever wider to my blatant inconsistencies and shameless coverups.

But, there it is, my present journey toward self-love. It is coming with the help of the Enneagram and at the expense of a good spiritual chainsaw. Like the Orcs’ insidious intentions in Fangorn Forest, God and I have together hacked and burned and burned and hacked at the forest in my eyes. It is an unwelcome process however necessary.

As I said at the beginning, I’m slowly understanding what self-love can actually mean; the benefits so to speak. Those with whom we must share this life are best served when we work on our own stuff first. After all, nobody wants to be another’s eye-forest lumberjack.

Glimpses IV: the spirituality of home

On August 11, 2012August 11, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation9 Comments

With this topic I enter through a small door into a big room. I do so on tip-toes so as not to awaken any sleeping giants. Home, like love is a word deceptively larger than its meager 4 letters suggests. In my 48 years post-womb I have been many people to many people with many people. A social chameleon, I guess I thought it best to live vicariously through anyone other than myself. Their stories were better, more invigorating or inspiring, or more inclined to win female attention or male praise.

As a result, home, both as place and idea, hasn’t always had the centrifugal force it is supposed to have. From time to time, life has felt a bit disjointed, like a balance with an ill-positioned fulcrum. It’s always a little off. Move it enough and one forgets where the center was to begin with.

Most folks enjoy at least a minimal sense of who they are and when their boundaries are breached. Whenever something foreign or unnecessary storms the walls of their identity they have a means of objective detachment whereby to judge their suddenly unfamiliar surroundings. I, apparently, lack this essential characteristic.

Why?

Is it my artistic, non-logical, non-empirical sensibilities? Perhaps the fact that I’m adopted? Could it be my “progressive” sensibilities (think protest songs, Kumbaya group hugs and flannel shirts), my piss poor memory or some unseen psychological malady(s)? Bad gas? It is as baffling and frustrating as it is intriguing.

The result is the fact that home needs redefining for me – renaming even; something broad enough to encompass my complexities (annoyances to those who know me best), focused enough to provide sufficient context for who I am becoming and “Jesusy” enough (thank you, Anne Lamott) to be honest, self-sacrificial and have lasting trajectory with ultimate meaning…oh, and perhaps a hint of compassion.

(The 950 square foot bungalow in Calgary where I grew up)

A recent trip to my home-turf of southern Alberta left me with these thoughts:

Home is not geographical as much as spatial. It involves an awareness, a familiarity as it were; that place “where everybody knows your name.” I know it and it knows me. There is no awkwardness or second guessing. I understand the politics, the inside jokes, the acceptable or unacceptable faux pas. The prevalent bigotries, hip views, “in” restaurants, “now” looks. The shortcuts and back roads to places only I know or care to know.

In other words, home is where we know and are known. It is about who we spend our lives with and why. We are most home when surrounded by those with whom we share life, both good stuff and bad. We are home when someone cares enough to be pissed off at us or play practical jokes on us. Or cry with us.

Here is the challenge however. As good as all that sounds, it’s still an unsure footing for something as untamed and uncertain as the spiritual life. It makes a ton of assumptions, many of which grow from our home-grown, Western world, Waltons mentality. What if I’m blind and cannot see the above gifts? Deaf and cannot hear the words of familial comfort or humor? Comatose and cannot experience them? Mentally incapacitated so as to deny full involvement in it all? Incarcerated or worse? Where, then, do I find “home”?

If anyone stood well outside the comfortable, normal or expected, it was Jesus. His was not a simple move across the country or even the globe. The journey he undertook landed him amid the harassed mass of fallen humanity of which he was now a shareholder. Where once he enjoyed the benefits of Trinitarian dwelling and the benefits thereof, he passes through a birth canal into the cold world, created for, through and by him. Jesus’ example and presence makes home possible even in the least likely locations.

Why?

He gave up his “home” in order to give us ours. And that’s good enough for me.

Glimpses, part III – thin places

On July 28, 2012September 1, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Beauty, Christian spirituality, Christianity, sacramental living, spiritual formation4 Comments

Two people stand on either side of a white bed sheet suspended from a clothesline. As it billows and blows this way and that, you are given a passing glimpse of someone standing on the other side. The image never stays long enough for you to determine its shape or identity. Your curiosity is piqued enough however to move closer to the sheet. The breeze stops momentarily and you place a tentative hand upon the sheet, now still and waiting. Your hand feels cool fabric, thin and light to the touch.

To your surprise at first and then to your delight, a hand presses against yours from the other side, the side that hinted at an image impossible to confirm with your eyes, untrained for such visions. Two hands touch, finger to finger, palm to palm and there is recognition. It is the realization that something holy is transpiring. The sacredness of it hangs in the air like a heavy mist. You stand, breathless, waiting, uncertain – yet somehow…sure.

That is what the Celts have called, a thin place.

Peering out my hotel window onto the suburban Portland landscapes, a collaboration of grey sky with green horizon conspires against my equally somber mood and confirms that this overstatement of beauty is underrated. It is a melancholy scene uniquely designed for creatives and mystics like myself. It doesn’t parade itself, shouting in one’s face like the endless, overly peppy summer days my fellow Yakimanians insist upon.

No, this multilayered beauty lets me seek for it. There is the obvious beauty one sees immediately with the eyes. But there exists an indirectness, hinting at something still deeper, under the skin, as if to say, “if you think this is beautiful, just keep looking…” Here it is that Hopkins’ “dearest freshness deep down things”, for me, makes the most sense. One feels that to plumb the depths of one level of this spongy flora is merely an epidermis covering the heart of the matter many floors down where every living thing converges, colliding to become itself all over again.

See the following poetic inspiration from this same journey from Yakima to Portland.

The green of Oregon. A thin place.

I always say in such heavily wooded areas, as I do near the ocean, that the air has a finished quality to it. It lacks for nothing. As a family, we loved to spend a great deal of time on the beach when we lived in Oregon. Along with our two boys, our dog and a Frisbee, it was not uncommon for us to take lawn chairs and a host of reading materials, planting ourselves confidently on our tiny plot of sand. From there the wind, waves, body surfers, gulls, joggers and beachcombers would teach us of the God who makes sense of the small and great, loud and quiet, still and quick. One of those many times garnered the following poetic triptych posted elsewhere.

Thoughts from the beach…

To commemorate a beach walk with my wife.

Beauty. Random squalor in effortless

wave deposits her treasure.

In our efforts to build that which

hand could never grasp we trade

Quintessential. Queer. Quiet for

Quantifiable. Quick. Casual.

Oh, such grand wordless words-

wonder, world-watched prayers

waiting…waiting.

That which is unseen – now