Category: Christianity

Adventia, day 23

On By robertalanrifeIn Beauty, Christianity, faith, Family, life together, poetry, Story, the artsLeave a comment

Currently, I am reading through a favourite book of prayers, poetry, and contemplative practice entitled “Hearts on Fire: Praying with the Jesuits” (Loyola Press, Chicago / ed. by Michael Harter, SJ 1993/2004). It is a useful and rich resource as an accompaniment and guide to the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. It is also a perfect place to start for anyone interested in exploring the highly imaginative, participatory manner Ignatian spirituality teaches meditation by drawing one to inhabit biblical narratives.

For Adventia, day 23, I am sharing this gorgeous and inventive retelling of the Luke 2 story by Michael Moynahan, SJ simply titled, “In the Out House.”

It’s been a long,

dusty ride.

A steep and winding road

weaves serpentine

up the side of mountains.

They race the sun

with prospects of a new head to tax,

albeit a small one,

an impending certainty.

Sky and mother

are visual proof.

–

They reach the city

exhausted

but full of hope.

The husband,

mistaken on occasion

for her father,

fails to act his age

and dashes toward

a door about to close.

–

“Excuse me,

Could you give us a room for the night?

Some place to lay our heads?”

–

“Can’t you read, buster?

We’re all filled up.”

–

“I understand.

It’s my wife,

She’s about to have her first child.”

–

“That’s not my problem.”

–

“He’s not a problem.

He’s a fact

of life.”

–

“Open your ears, buddy,

because I’m only

gonna say this once.

We ain’t got no room.

So scram!”

–

“I understand”

is drowned

by the sound of a

slammed door.

–

Three times he will try

to find them lodging.

And with each failure

fell less capable

of caring for his wife

and that life within her

wanting out.

–

“It doesn’t look good.

All their rooms are taken.”

–

“Don’t worry.

God will provide.”

–

And all the time thinking:

“That’s what I’m afraid of.

They’re sorry

but they’re full.

It’s looking bleak.”

–

“God will give us

what we need.”

He shakes his head.

She believes this

and it comforts him little.

–

The third stop

looking like a

distant bleak relation

of the previous two.

Until the owner’s wife

spies the young girl wince

from movement she understands

all too well.

–

“You can have

the place out back.

It isn’t much

but it will be a roof

over your heads.

There’s fresh hay thrown.

The animals won’t bother you

and the child will be warm.

I’ll get some rags and water.

Go on now,

the mother

and baby

are waiting.”

–

Silently

the young girl’s face

proclaims:

–

“Magnificent!”

Adventia, days 19 & 20

On By robertalanrifeIn Christianity, faith, life together, poetry, sacramental living, Story, the artsLeave a comment

The following prophetic poetry has always been such a seismic piece that it deserves a couple days. For Adventia, days 19 and 20, I am posting one of the most remarkable, strangely comforting, but deeply subversive prophetic passages in the entire Scripture.

These words, from the mouth of a young, pregnant Mary are as powerful now as they ever were. For those who think the Gospel nothing more than one’s personal ticket to heaven with little social impact, the poem that would become known as “The Magnificat” easily challenges such quaintly dismissive, erroneous assumptions.

In two translations, the New Revised Standard Version and The Message, I give you –

Luke 1:46-55 – “The Magnificat” 

(NRSV)

And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
47   and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
48 for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
   Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
   and holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him
   from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
   and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
   and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
   in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
   to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

(The Message)

46-55 And Mary said,

I’m bursting with God-news;
    I’m dancing the song of my Savior God.
God took one good look at me, and look what happened—
    I’m the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
    the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave
    on those who are in awe before him.
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
    scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
    pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
    the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
    he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It’s exactly what he promised,
    beginning with Abraham and right up to now.

Um, wow.

Adventia, day 15 (third Sunday of Advent)

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George Herbert (1593 – 1633) was a Welsh-born poet, orator, and priest of the Church of England. He hailed from a wealthy family and his poetry is recognised as some of the greatest in the Christian devotional canon.

Adventia, day 13

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Adventia, day 13. The poem is “Incarnation.” The poet is Irene Zimmerman. This poem originally appeared in Incarnation: New and Selected Poems for Spiritual Reflection, © 2004 Irene Zimmerman. Sister Irene Zimmerman, OSF, is a Franciscan nun living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Incarnation

In careful hands

God held the molten world –

fragile filigree

of unfinished blown glass.

Then Mary’s word: Yes!

rose like a pillar of fire,

and Breath blew creation

into Christed crystal.

Adventia, day 12

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For our offering today, I’ve decided to stretch outside the safe, sanitized confines of “respectable” or “easy” poetry. Instead, I choose this remarkably incisive and prophetic piece by poet, Dan Anderson.

For God’s Elect in Shopping Malls
Dan Anderson

For those who would not choose to grow old before the Son of Man comes.

A woman with eyes painted on her boobs.
Another reading ‘dodgy’, another inscrutable.
Unfailingly matched to personal genre.
Thematised Personalities of the latter Capitalism.

World writ on the chests of post-Christmas shoppers.
On their post-Christmas T-Shirts. Taunt as these turgid surplus days.
Or sagging with remorse, various colours of remorse.
Buyers. Gifted – those who grieve their gifts. For whatever reason.

Returning shirts. Those soft packages, small bombs of disappointment
That mined the carpet round the Christmas tree.
Sale shirts. Unwanted gifts never sold. A surplus of disappointment.
This excess week, just enough to reconcile the wrong gifts of the old year.

What cancer lives in the soul of a people who exchange gifts?
Gifts that were never thought precious to begin with. But were.
Gifts that were cheap because the panting labour of creation was stolen.
Groaning. Tired hands and aching backs that sutured them cheap.

T-shirts that were hated by their makers, and a disappointment to those who received them.
Who will never be worn. Passed from hand to hand but never worn.
Raped from the earth. Cotton-farms, Great scratches across her face. Unswabbed.
Made poisonous by hatred and other chemicals. Buried.
Done again. And again. Until there is nothing left to take and no where left to hide.

When the Son of Man comes, and all his Holy Angels with him,
Will he need to do more than open our landfills, speak to the T-Shirts,
Give them words to tell their stories, the testimony of fibres. To pronounce?
What was whispered in workshops will be shouted from the rooftops.
And the judgement written across our chests, graphically, designedly.

Stern Son, I would have no hope of your judgement.
If you had not worn such a shirt. Clothed yourself in flesh.
Hung upon, cared and washed, worn out. Worn still.
Been surplus. Been a disappointment. Been laid with the fodder.
Been unspeakably precious. Been the joy of groaning history.
Been unrecognised. Been bloodied. Been hung out to dry.

Laundering Son, how I long to be clothed by you.

Adventia, day 10

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The radically counter-cultural nature of the Advent narrative demands poetry of equal heft and teeth. Few are better positioned to contribute such as Óscar Arnulfo Romero y Galdámez (15 August 1917 – 24 March 1980). Catholic prelate and later Bishop of El Salvador became a martyr in his outcries against the social injustice and violence amid the escalating conflict in his homeland. He perished by gunshot while serving Mass. His spirit is the very spirit of Advent itself: love invading hate, light invading darkness, righteousness invading chaos.

For Adventia, day 10, I give you…

Adventia, day 5

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Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 –1894), born in London, was an English writer of romantic, devotional, and children’s poetry. She is also famous for having written the texts of two well-known Christmas carols: “In the Bleak Midwinter” and “Love Came Down at Christmas.”

This poem combines Advent and Lenten themes; the sacrificial Christ pursuing the hospitality and kindness represented by the inn where there was no room for the holy family. The question ever asked of us, “is there room for the Christ within?”

Don’t forget to pop over and visit Real Poets Daily. They’re a wealth of inspiring poetry!

Adventia, day 1

On By robertalanrifeIn Beauty, Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, poetry, sacramental living, spiritual formation, The Church1 Comment

No, the above is not meant as some cheap attempt at a New Joizy accent with the word adventure. Let’s just call it the purposeful amalgamation of Advent and Fragmentia. Let it be a place where the illumination of God’s in-breaking into our world found in the Advent narratives unites with the fragments of literature and faith and life seeking to bring us to deeper understanding of it all.

Advent is upon us once more. With it comes a barrage of books and practices all aimed at helping us get the most from the experience. Last year I chose to post a daily poetic reflection on my poetry website. This year I’d like to do something similar here on innerwoven. It gives me opportunity to dive deep into some of the best words about the best time of the year; the beginning of the church’s calendar at Advent. These poems are both old and new and are found in various places.

For Advent, day 1 we begin with a gorgeous piece by Sally Thomas, which I saw first on a favourite Instagram channel, #realpoetsdaily 

Here is “First Sunday” by Sally Thomas ( @sallytnnc )

Morning’s Morning

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, sacramental living, spiritual formationLeave a comment

Seeds of Grace

On By robertalanrifeIn Addiction, Addiction & Sobriety, Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation2 Comments

I’ve been quite open about my struggle with alcoholism and subsequent recovery. Perhaps it is because, through my association with the program and community of A.A. I’ve rediscovered the loving, trustworthy God I once knew. That God somehow got lost along the way, despite my practices of faith, my role as a “professional Christian,” and a radical conversion experience at eighteen.

These days, my faith is simpler. It is not so cliché-ridden, expectation-laden, preconceived notions-driven. It is one of basics: learning humility, self-love, and the practices necessary to maintain and nourish the same. Along the way, I read everything I can get my hands on to assist in that journey. This is a short excerpt from my Seeds of Grace: A Nun’s Reflections on the Spirituality of Alcoholics Anonymous by Sister Molly Monahan (pseudonym).