Category: faith

I hate waiting

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

Impatient Businessman

I don’t wait well. Wow, what a stupid and obvious way to begin an Advent blog post. Since I’ve begun this foray into a rather universal bugaboo and done so at that time of year when nothing fresh could possibly be said about the topic, I might as well carry on.

I am one who cannot abide rifts between friends, jagged edges in places where, with a little faith and work, the rough places could be made smooth; broken bridges to reunite two sides of a single stream.

I am told that I am particularly good at defusing conflict. What these same people are too polite to mention, however, is that I’m equally good at creating it. Be that as it may, I apparently have a gift for big picture thinking, peaceful words toward potentially peaceable outcomes.

Damn it.

Ironically (tragically, if you ask me), those who are called peacemakers generally hate conflict more than any others. Hence, the very gifts with which we’re saddled are just that, burdens to be borne more than wings upon which to fly through the mêlée.

I run at the first sign of even a hint of conflict. When they come, I am more unsettled than anyone but, when the time is ripe, the field of battle well-lit and ready, and the stands full of naysayers and side-takers, I will enter the fray, weak in the knees and, with dry mouth, stutter words of “now, imagine how this might be better.”

I’ve had a reasonable rate of success at this. But what about those times of waiting in which no amount of resourcefulness, faith, seeking, pain or bag-‘o-tricks seems enough? When does one say that to wait is no longer a reasonable option? When do we finally reach the point of no return? The statute of limitations on someone’s good promises? The place where it appears waiting was a bad idea to begin with?

Meet a battle-weary, time-scarred, now largely apathetic Israel who only say they’re waiting for the “coming Messiah.” After such a long absence, why bother arousing hope in that which perhaps was a cosmic ruse to begin with? God’s just playin’ around, testing our mettle. Like me, their best approaches, clearest study, best thinking, most robust faith…are for naught. To wait anymore is, well, just a waste of the necessary energy required to just get along.

This was the environment into which “in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son.” It’s always the environment that God’s Son is most forthcoming. When we can no longer take credit for our astonishing acts of faithful waiting, God comes.

I hate waiting. God loves that because the Gospel of grace, the ultimate peacemaking enterprise, was, is and always will be God’s gig.

adventmusic

Let this Advent be a time of giving up futile fights and endlessly moribund conflicts. Submit to God’s higher waiting; that which is dependent not on our patient endurance, but on God’s perfect track record at keeping promises.

 Pics here and here, respectively

 

 

 

 

A Sunday Prayer

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation3 Comments

Truthful One,

why do we start as something,

give others the impression that that something

is our true something-ness when in truth

we are something much different indeed?

Living One,

what is the starting place of our deepest self?

When living day to day, how do we know

we’re giving to others that which

comes from living places and not from dead places

merely adorned with glitter and trinkets to make them appealing?

Serving One,

where are the lines drawn between obligation and self-respect?

When does serving another embezzle their need

to capably discover their own inner strength?

When does such a question even matter –

if at all?

Shining One,

how can the coal dust accumulating on my layered soul

be removed to reveal the sheen of love,

framed in hope, birthed of grace that you see?

That I see in my better moments?

Holy One,

I speak no more.

Instead, speak, for your servant is listening.

My ongoing prayer experiment

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, liturgy, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worship14 Comments

A while back I began to write about my big prayer experiment. In that piece, I shared the three greatest gifts to my prayer life:

1. Contemplative prayer, I.e. prayer without agenda/lovingly gazing at God.

2. Total honesty in the presence of a God who already knows all my shit.

3. The gift of Intercession.

Nothing has changed with this experiment. I do want to add something, however; something that has utterly revolutionized my prayer life, turning it into something to which I cannot wait to return.

I pray the Rosary.

Big deal, right? Millions do. Well, here’s the thing – I’m a Protestant. We’re supposed to look with suspicion, pity or even hatred at such wayward, Medieval practices believing them to be the rote, meaningless prayers pooh-poohed by Jesus in the Gospels. How could such a ridiculous thing, something held in regard by little, old ladies and superstitious saintly wannabes possibly lead one to the expected spontaneity and relationship we’re led to accept through our more enlightened “salvation prayer” at the end of the 4 Spiritual Laws booklet? Or so we Protestants are taught to think. You remember…the “Accept you’re a sinner/Believe in the Good News/Confess your sins” prayer that, like magic, whisks us from the apparent hell of our present existence into the Thomas Kinkade wonderland of Jesusy goodness? It’s actually a very good prayer. A necessary one.

It’s just so…incomplete.

Actually, I prayed that prayer once, too. Not necessarily that exact prayer, but one just like it. I credit that prayer for bringing a keener sense of articulation and focus to my otherwise meandering picture of me and God. I suppose I could even credit that “salvation prayer” as my come-to-Jesus moment, with the beginning (continuation?) of a journey even deeper into the heart of prayer.

The Rosary has been an important step in solidifying my need to regulate my prayer practice in chronological, tactile and organized ways. It also invites me to see prayer as more than just talking at God. Here, I can sit with another, Someone whose indelible presence ought to leave me breathless and speechless anyway. Although I’ve owned one before, it wasn’t until my dear Catholic friend, Val Dodge Head, gifted me with one I could actually wear around my neck that I began developing a daily practice. Here is the historic Rosary Prayer:

Rosary Prayer

The purpose of the Rosary is to help keep in memory certain principal events or mysteries in the history of our salvation, and to thank and praise God for them. This is the mountain rapids version of the Rosary Prayer. It begins with the Sign of the Cross and the Apostles’ Creed. This is followed, successively, by The Lord’s Prayer (the Our Father or Pater Noster), 3 Hail Marys, the 1st Mystery of Our Father and Hail Holy Queen. There are twenty mysteries reflected upon in the Rosary, all of which are divided into the five JOYFUL MYSTERIES, the five LUMINOUS MYSTERIES, the five SORROWFUL MYSTERIES, and the five GLORIOUS MYSTERIES. The Hail Mary is recited ten times (called a decade) between meditating on the mysteries in question. After each decade is said the following prayer requested by the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have most need of your mercy.” The whole undertaking is a most imaginative blending of redemptive and mystical theology.

Here is my own adaptation.

I begin and end with the Sign of the Cross. The crucifix acts as The Lord’s Prayer both in and out of my Rosary. For morning prayer, the first bead is always Psalm 63 (King James Version), which I memorized many years ago. If in the afternoon, I’ll choose some other Psalm or a Prayer of St. Columba: “Kindle in our hearts, O God, the flame of that love which never ceases, that it may burn in us, giving light to others. May we shine forever in your holy temple, set on fire with your eternal light, even your Son Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Redeemer.” The Hail Mary beads are replaced by 3 Kyries (Lord, have mercy; Christ, have mercy; Lord, have mercy). In turn, these are followed, respectively, by the well known Ignatian Prayer, the Anima Christi and the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi. The decade beads are breath prayers. With these, I practice more contemplative or centering prayer. Phrases such as “peace, be still” or “in the Lord, I’ll be ever thankful” or “holy is your name, O Lord” or, most often, The Jesus Prayer punctuate this time. It is unhurried and allows my mind to cleanse and my soul to pulsate to the sound of God’s own heart. The Mystery beads form a wonderful place for me to pray the daily Lectionary Psalms, various scriptures I have memorized or, on more creative retreat days, I’ll write or read poetry I’ve written. I exit the Rosary the same way I entered, although in reverse order.

The Rosary has been great respite to me since I am living nowhere near the Monasteries I used to frequent in Oregon. God has shown me just how holy even the most unholy places can be. In those places least ideal for luminosity, God has been busily proving me wrong about my previous misconceptions. The mysterious geography of prayer must begin in the cracks and fissures of the human spirit before it gets the added benefit of the babbling brook heard just outside the Monastery gates.

The Rosary has helped. 

Lord, fashion the slow calligraphy of your name

in a once stone heart, broken now as sand.

Spit out the bones of my old, gristled soul revivified on your tongue,

reattached to the sinews of your own holy arm. 

Sear the brand of white hot remembrance into the skin of my brazen back

so that only those I lead can see it.

In the wordless chatter of our silent conversations,

bring up the topics closest to your heart that breaks so much easier than mine.

Let the voices of a hundred thousand saints

crowd out the stifling arrogance of my solitary blethering.

And into that holy community of singing silence,

sing, Holy One, sing.

 

PIcture of Rosary can be found here. Rosary Prayer instructions can be found here.

________ One – a prayer

On By robertalanrifeIn Beauty, Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, liturgy, poetry, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worship1 Comment

Ineffable One,

there is a haze of wanton disregard fogging the window to my soul;

a fog of discontent that swirls around my deepest knowing;

an arrogant knowing where, in it’s place, I need unknowing.

Holy One,

relieve me of foolish trust in my ability to live in perfection.

Let loose the hounds of irreducible chaos if by their baying

I learn to shut out the noise of my voice for the Voice.

Glorious One,

teach me that, to look directly into the sun, is death.

But, to gaze into your face through grace filtered and raw,

is to see you as you truly are – horrifying in beauty.

Little One,

it once was said that the One who flung stars into space

fits securely in the tiny confines of the human heart.

Similarly, make me tiny, so that your reach through me is great.

Unseen One,

I have convinced myself that you make yourself invisible.

Remind me that I see you every time someone cries in pain

or, at the risk of their own wellness, becomes pain for another.

Elusive One,

forgive me for when I boast of my growing knowledge of God,

only to discover that it’s all been a ruse, a play on words,

your playful, cryptic way of introducing me to myself.

Unending One,

shake me loose from the need to place parameters, provisos,

gates on that which only ever bursts them asunder.

Help me to stop trying to find your endings and look for beginnings.

Loving One,

I am at a loss to understand, let alone experience,

such self-forgetful yearning for the good of another

that you would watch yourself disappear into the abyss,

only to return as the One.

Life from the center

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

Friends, I am grateful and humbled to be a part of a quickly growing organization…organism really, called Center Quest. logoIt is defined as “an ecumenical hub for the study and practice of Christian spirituality.” It’s focus is on identifying, training, encouraging and unleashing spiritual directors into a world badly in need of this ministry. In that effort, it has attracted top practitioners of this ancient art together in one remarkable place. The brainchild of international Nouwen scholar, spiritual director, retreat leader and friend, Dr. Wil Hernandez (pictured here), presidents-message-wilit is truly precedent setting in that it also seeks to be a “center” around which many other schools of spiritual formation and direction around the globe receive equal press; kind of a “one stop shop” for those seeking advancement in their spiritual journey and needing resources – lots and lots of resources. They call CenterQuest “home” without ever really leaving their own “home” carved out through their own unique calling and vocation as leaders in these areas. Please be sure to check out their website to discover the vast possibilities for personal and community growth.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 (Val Dodge Head)

Val-Dodge-Head

Speaker, writer, retreat leader, spiritual director, and friend, Val Dodge Head, acts in an administrative and supportive role to Wil in helping to establish a most impressive list of companions, consultants, board members, partners, mentors, and friends. The cool website has been made possible through her tireless efforts along with web designers. Her gentle spirit, enthusiasm and joy will be invaluable to Wil and team in the days to come as the dust continues to settle and the sun rises on this new and exciting venture.

As a proud member of the CenterQuest blog team, my own submission and that of friend and fellow blogger, Christianne Squires 1380307928_christianne squires (find her at www.stillforming.com) can be found here. 

(Christianne Squires)

Examen on a Sunday in the Fall

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

Lord, like you, I am sweeping leaves,

as the trees eschew their fingers,

and turn their heads on part of themselves.

I looked and saw too many leaves

from too many long winters

heaped up on top of each other,

becoming the worm-infested mulch

of a wayward heart.

But, Lord, you also created worms.

They loosen what would otherwise

pack itself down into a deadening tightness,

choking out what life is yet to come.

You seem to prefer it this way, Lord.

New stuff grows from old,

good from bad,

fresh from foul.

So be it.

Examen on a Saturday evening

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

banquet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So it is to be, latent but translucent

that weavings and partings both,

secured in their places best suited

to their emergence or demise,

are laid out on God’s table of cards.

The goodbyes of days that turn to nights

that turn to days that turn to timeless

wonders, the crevices where only God’s

fingers fit. They’re too small for me

because I’m too big in me to see

my own smallness in him.

Wreck all chances for shoddy self-repair

and lay the table for a banquet instead,

where bread on my tongue and

the clinking glasses serve to remind me

of a better meal yet to come.

Image: www.annapolitanbride.com 

A Thursday Prayer of Examen

On By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, spiritual formation, worship4 Comments

Lord, tie up my expectations like a pretzel

and replace them with a welcome mat

upon which are written only 4 words:

“Thy will be done.”

Thy will be done

Lord, press into the soft, unmarrowed places

of make believe love and headstrong hypocrisy

your thumbprint still dirty from

pinching me alive.

 

Lord, impale me upon the stake of truth,

not the truth of deception in perfect answers

but the Truth that leaves open wounds

on a heart that only looks for niceties.

 

Lord, sit me down at the base of this wood

pounded together with the same nails

that tore through flesh softer than love,

tougher than hate.

 

Lord, with meddling tongue tied behind my back

let my hands, now free

show my mouth that it’s silence

has gifted those I now serve.

 

Lord, interrupt the long stream of my proclamations

of ideas diminished by my words;

words lesser still than those who listen

for something better than words.

 

Lord, fill my life with the awesome silence

of a boisterous heaven, singing in praise;

for only then will what I say and do

remind others of who you say I am.

 

Painting by James Seward

Life from a restaurant window

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

Perfectly groomed bushes line the windows looking out onto a courtyard greener, damper and more alive than I’ve seen since moving to Yakima seven years ago. A giant kiln-shaped fireplace centered in the garden sits quiet and still awaiting the passing of the rain and the arrival of others to warm themselves in its heat. KilnI chuckle at the closed table umbrellas standing tall and upright like stoic ladies in green, puffy skirts. Their task here is to keep one dry from the reliable Portland rain. The Yakima umbrella, although rare, acts as a glorified sunhat and is seldom used anyway. There they curse rain. Here, they wait for sun (if indeed they know what that is).

How I have missed the instant plunge into the deeper regions of my psyche, specifically the creative mystic part such an environment always brings. Like these condensation droplets adorning the windows through which I am looking, words almost instantly form in my mind. I need only mop them up and squeeze them onto the thirsty page.

Green lady umbrellasThere are many gifts that come to us from favorite places – both geographic location and the more unnameable geography of soul – suitable to our most natural selves. What has been lacking for me in the dusty, brown, overly hot setting of Yakima has been met in a stable plateau upon which to take a good, long and slow look in every direction. With my feet sunk in a little more deeply into the dusty soil of the Yakima Valley, I’ve known a certain freedom from which to venture into other, hitherto unexplored regions in my own soul. Places in the humility of obscurity, the predictability of nothingness, the garden of faithfulness and the simple, daily routines of life.

From these places, previously visited only briefly with my face pressed up against the glass, I have seen many things. God has pulled me up from the luscious, subterranean waters of my deepest yearnings to the street where the people are. They are those who populate my days and need the nourishment I myself have been given. I am reintroducing myself to the world, seeing familiar and beloved faces again as if for the first time. Ironically, in them, I am finding myself and, even more significantly, I am seeing Jesus. God is equally present above the bald, treeless ground as below it in the dark, thin places where nutrients abound but is largely unpopulated.

Here and now converge more readily as I release the tightly held things I believed indispensable to my wholeness. Slowly, God is revealing to my spirit just how present God is in such places – places formerly reprehensible and ugly. God is nesting more intricately in me. I see God more now and that is setting me free from expectations and demands and leading me to the joys of union, home, and peace…anywhere.

It is the greatest gift I could receive on this, the day of my fiftieth birthday.

Passaging well

On By robertalanrifeIn faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation8 Comments

Our lives are a series of passages. One tributary leads to another, which in turn yields to something else on its way to waterfall or harbor, estuary or eddy. At times we are stuck, unmoving. Or so it seems. To be stuck can actually be a decision not to decide something. Perhaps it’s a slow, deep spot before being sucked back out into the rapids where we easily lose our sense of direction and the not unreasonable expectation that we’ll fly ass over tea kettle into the frothy spray. There are even times when our boat slows almost to a crawl and we find ourselves in the enchantments of a Pirates of the Caribbean style rendezvous with delight. DSC_0019

Whatever the case may be it should be our goal to passage well. That is, when faced with life’s bone-chilling decisions, we learn to listen for the most gracious, compassionate means by which to navigate such. Bad transitions lead to less than adequate skills needed for the yet more difficult passages to come. They also create a sinkhole of insecurity since we’ll just have to face similar rapids again later but with one more failure to our credit.

I turn 50 on Monday. Sorry, just let me write that again to be sure I’m not asleep. I turn 50 on Monday. Numbers. We get so stuck on them. Especially the “decade” numbers that are supposed to magically move us on to newer, higher, greater things than we were meant to achieve in our last, apparently insufficient, decade. So, at 50, what should my “achievements” be? To whom do I speak to discover my rating for my forties? Who hands out the balloons and coffee to the five-decade newbies? It comes either with joie de vivre or woe is me that numbers are wielded with respect to age. Along with the number comes a freight train long derivative connotations, expectations, projections, assumptions, and tongue-in-cheek pathos. Pish posh says I.

I think so little about age related stuff these days. Make no mistake, I’m still vain, overly self-concerned and a bit slower maybe. But the idea that, by this age, I should or shouldn’t be something is anathema to me. I am exactly what, who and where I am. It just…is. Yes, I have goals. Yes, I have patterns and certain expectations both of others and myself. Yes, I have jetsam floating in my wake I wish weren’t so obvious. But, at almost 50, I’m happy with what life has or has not become.

I’m much more interested in being the most surrendered and loving person I can be at any given moment during these passages of my life which only seem to come more quickly all the time. I want to say hello well with a definitive eye to eye recognition of another human being equally as needy as I. I want to say forgive me well, and often, to those who have had the misfortune of discovering just how much of an asshole I can be. I want to hold people’s pain and joy well, that they invite me to do so again and offer similar friendship to me. I want to say goodbye well, with class, grace and compassion. A goodbye that puts a Gospel period at the end of a glorious sentence.

Learning to passage well has many rewards. Fewer regrets I suppose might be one. But, more than that, in the ever-expanding journal of our meandering lives, a clarity of chapter markings brings a satisfaction to the sojourner of adequate closure before moving on to another part of their story. It expresses a sense of poise and, ultimately, denouement to our lives that those whose eyes watch us for signs of the Divine are longing to see. More than anything else, how we transition through the passages of our lives reveals the level of our trust in the unseen God making Godself seen – through us. Through me.

Lord, I pray that I’ve passaged well from my forties to my fifties. Let love and kindness be the obvious characteristics of this next passage, Lord. Let the walls of this tunnel be painted with the handprints of those I’ve loved. May the wake of my boat be littered with the flower petals of other’s lives I’ve been blessed to know. May this aging pilgrim always see the best in others and give them the chances afforded me. It’s how I most want to passage.

I turn 50 on Monday. I can hardly wait.

How about you? What does your current passage ask of you? 

How might God be inviting you to passage well in these days?