A journal entry: Friday, July 19th, 2013

On July 19, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Beauty, Christian spirituality, faith, literature, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worship2 Comments

These words flow from a pen both weak and hungry. They dump onto paper in an effort to unload excess flotsam from my soul. My pen is also hungry for words other than those that seem only to spill out in self-expression, self-deprecation, self-indictment, self-actualization, self, self, self…blah! There’s so much me that there is precious little room left for anyone else. At times like these I’m left to ponder whether I’d even recognize the harmonious, lilting song of God above the shrill, cacophonous din of my own voice trumpeting its need of something or other.

Instead, let me bring the pen of a ready writer, a writer, ready and poised to praise the One whose words I seek. The Logos – the Ultimate Word – forms the inspiration for my little words. Maybe as I write my words in praise of the Word, my story will begin to take on the shape of the Great Narrator. Let your wise and beautiful words, O Logos, letter my life with beauty, honesty and truth.

The Beginning.

Reflections on faith and art – Going Back to Move Forward: Da Capo al Fine

On July 6, 2013July 8, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn faith, life together, music, spiritual formation, the arts4 Comments

As a boy I loved to hike in the Rocky Mountains not far from where I grew up in Calgary, Alberta. Fourteen year old boys are known for many things. A steady, focused willingness to properly read a map is not one of them. On more than one occasion I got lost. Colossally lost. Front page news lost.

Now, getting lost in the hood is one kind of nervous. Getting lost on some back road is another. But, getting lost in the Rockies, well known as treacherous, moody, bear-infested and snow-smothered is something else altogether. Bears do their best grocery shopping among these unpredictable rocks, boulders and ancient back-scratched geography where over confident lads provide them ready access to fresh food.

A group of stolid and hardy lads in which I was involved, the Boy’s Brigade of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, enjoyed numerous such excursions into this high altitude, western paradise each year. I, in fact, was a group leader, having achieved the illustrious honor of Lance Corporal (it sounded cooler then than now). Part of my duties involved rallying chaotic, testosterone-laden infusions of pre-manhood into some semblance of order; a kind of teenage yellow rope.

Our destination? Alberta’s unrivaled Moraine Lake hidden artfully among The Valley of the Ten Peaks.

It is a space of unparalleled breadth and relatively young, but stoic guardians of Banff National Park. By comparison, the tiny, peanut shaped lake, covering barely a fifth of a square mile, is sister to numerous other glacier lakes squatting majestically in the Rockies, including Lake Louise. It is of a color impossible to accurately describe. Suffice it to say that the wildly turquoise hue of the crystalline water announces itself with an overstated elegance well suited to its heroic surroundings.

That was our setting. This was our set up: about twenty over-confident, wildly exuberant man-boys oozed out of two vans, dutifully fart-infested, noise-experienced and travel weary (it is a two hour drive after all), at the main parking lot at the base of the valley. From there a host of hiking trails, well trod and well signed, could be promptly ignored by our troop of bawdy adventurers. We were perfectly capable of navigating the complexities of the labyrinthine Rocky Mountains armed with a compass or two, a twenty-minute basic survival training video and our three fearless leaders (I’d include myself, but I helped forge the debacle).

One would think that our conservative Presbyterian environment might have created a more…human tribe. But, alas, as is the predicate of our gender, our bombastic tales of woe and fabled exploits with mystery women, always surprisingly willing to succumb to our passionate advances, filled the summer wind; a wind mixed well with our own teenage gaseous effluent. As father to two strapping lads of my own, I am often privy to the baffling rampage of boastful male oddities foisted on an unsuspecting, eye-rolling public. Yes, I was one of those. Lord, have mercy. But, more than our strutting demeanors might suggest, we were severely lacking in either outdoor prowess or the wisdom of experience, let alone the common sense generally considered an asset in the Canadian wilderness.

In just over twenty-four hours we were fabulously lost. The question burning in one’s mind at this point might be, how does one get lost when one goes hiking in an area so distinctively obvious as an azure-blue lake punctuated by ten rather large, easy to count, mountain peaks? Good question. We asked the same one, numerous times, each time with greater panic. Every cut line, every scree, every grove of pine trees all looked annoyingly similar. And with each wrong turn, our confidence waned. And, as our confidence waned, so did our supplies. The unwanted guest? Panic.

When life hits the place of panic and confidence has escaped out the back door, we will often put our heads down, flip our collars to “the cold and damp” and soldier on. We think that faithfulness to our present course is best since we can throw so many juicy scriptures to support it. Besides, we just need faith and to “man up.” Right?

As it is when lost on a hiking trip, so it is in life. Sometimes it is just best to pause for a moment, take a breath and then retrace one’s steps to the last recognizable place before starting up again. However, to one who is lost, once recognizable things seem foreign. As a result, we are forced to trust the more tried and true accoutrements of trodden path, compass and map. Our ending place, though seeming as though unguaranteed, is more assured in light of an intentional return to what we know best.

Go back to the beginning until you find the end – da capo al fine – is a musical term used to circumscribe large pieces of music that would otherwise prove too unwieldy and long. It also offers listeners an opportunity to experience again the musical strains that first captivated, re-opening doors to the sublime. It is also designed to bring a satisfying musical journey to a final, glorious end. And, it describes well the course of action best suited to the dilemma of lost-ness.

To heedlessly plow ahead regardless of consequences on some vague notion of finding one’s way by sheer determination will, more often than not, lead to disappointment…or worse. To stop, breathe in deeply the air that still surrounds us, and then prayerfully return to a foundational place, is always the wiser choice. Of course, this doesn’t guarantee we’ll find our place of origin on the journey quickly or easily. What we may find, however, is the still, small voice spoken just behind our ear encouraging us to follow the voice, not just our gut. That said, how fun to hear an orchestra take a stab at a symphony birthed out of the same bravado and self-assured swagger long vanished from our sorry troop and replaced with the unsteady panic of facing a vast forest with no clear sense of direction!

We did find our way home…well, with the help of RCMP helicopters and small army of distraught parent volunteers. D.C. al fine – back to go forward – forward back home. Our place of beginning, the spot where adventure and beauty became tears for fears (no, the real one) began, looked all the more beautiful for having taken the long way home.

BB picture: www.blogs.nottingham.ac.uk (Check out more on the Boys Brigade movement here)

dc al fine: www.mikesmusicpages.com

compass: www.seanoakely.com

Today: how one church is changing my mind about the Church

On June 7, 2013June 8, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worship10 Comments

Sunday, June 2, 2013. Today, I witnessed what Kingdom life could actually be. Today, I participated in the end result of a two year process of prayer and discernment and reading and study and task forces and subcommittees and newsletters and, and…all of which resulted in a remarkable decision: we decided, 95% in favor, to leave the PCUSA and join the ECC (Evangelical Covenant Church). Today, I observed a charter Presbyterian congregation, generally older but getting younger, choose a radically new direction in order to forge a future together.

Today, one church changed my mind about the Church.

I have served Westminster Presbyterian for almost seven years now as Minister of Worship and Music. It has been a charge not always gilded around the edges and, at times, fraught with peril and flying feathers. The church to which I first came was chaotic, dysfunctional, darkly suspicious and untrusting. They were, in a word: broken. We were front-page news in unfortunate, even scandalous ways, and were still convinced that our ship was afloat.

In my first year we lost a Pastor to admission of numerous counts of sexual harassment along with most of our staff. An artsy, indecisive, left-wing music director was forced into the uncomfortable cadre of leadership left in the wake of the human debacle that was Westminster at the time. I generally squirm in such scenarios but rose to the challenge (more or less) with fear and trembling. We were a congregation in crisis, chaos and spiritual renovation.

What got lost along the way were a bloated sense of self-importance, an uncomfortably conservative-exclusivist milieu, and pretty much all our youth and young families. It wasn’t a ghost town. It was more of a wind swept plain before spring planting. But there was to be one more storm to blow through town. His name? Well, let’s call him Roger. He came to us in the role of Interim Pastor. In a sense, it’s a bit like hiring a First Mate to steer a moving ship once the Captain has bailed. It is meant to be a short-term gig and pave the way for, what is in the PCUSA, a Designated Pastor to the end of obtaining a Senior Pastor.

Roger was a short, self-assured, theological bully. He blew into town with guns ablazin’, mouth awaggin’ and a well-oiled self-importance intact. Whatever remaining hope I had for this struggling place evaporated in the steam of his charging train, bull-in-a-china-shop, ministry style (he proudly considered himself the “bulldog pastor”). In his brief tenure (thank God), he singlehandedly destroyed my committee, a host of other committees, shouted and otherwise cajoled loudly and insistently, and pretty much insulted most everyone else. He was everything a pastor shouldn’t be. Stepping back from the experience however I’m forced to concede that the very good administrative and structural work he did not only paved the way for the coming of someone else to take his place but also, ironically, sealed his own fate.

In the trail of dust and carnage left behind we’ve hired a new Pastor, Reverend Duncan MacLeod. Duncan is a clever, winsome fellow of numerous abilities, overweening confidence (although graced with the humility lacking in his predecessor) and, most important of all, a great sense of humor. He would need that. His capable, relaxed style of leadership, together with an astonishingly humble and wise Session (elder-leaders in the Presbyterian tradition) guided us through the hazardous waters of ecclesiastical politics recently bubbling over in our denomination. The numerous, big ticket issues facing many mainline denominations have made their presence known, loudly and insistently, at PCUSA doors. The turbulent environment of this overly white, liberal, old boys club had become just poisonous enough to our particular DNA that, to be the strange animal we are and do gospel business the way we do it, we needed to vacate.

I’ve played the church game long enough to know that many churches have split over much less than what we’ve endured. We were chartered in 1957 as Westminster Presbyterian Church, a church plant of First Presbyterian, Yakima. We’ve faced down our demons and become well acquainted with our own scar tissue. Gratefully, the strange little group to which I was first wed has become, under Duncan’s leadership, let’s say…integrated. I would now describe us as unabashedly multi-generational, multi-ethnic (at least we’re trying), politically broad, and theologically diverse congregation. Those things are important to us; important enough to make whatever adjustments necessary to assure our continued presence as such.

Is it groundbreaking? For us. Is it precedent setting? Not as such. Is it unique? Of course not. No, nothing like that. Rather, it is indicative of a congregation longing to stay together and become who we already are by embracing what we are becoming. The next time you drive by, our sign may be different but the conversation will be just as lively, the swing in our step just as jaunty, our singing just as robust, our faces a bit more wrinkled, our doors a bit more open, and our fellowship…? Rich.

Today, one church changed my mind about the Church.

(September 5^th marks the seven-year anniversary of my tenure at Westminster Presbyterian Church. I love these people and will go to the wall for them. Thank you, dear friends).

Prayer of one who is lost

On May 21, 2013May 21, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Christianity, faith3 Comments

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.

25

On May 13, 2013April 14, 2014 By robertalanrifeIn faith, life together, sacramental living11 Comments

When I look at her I see a few extra pounds, a slight sag on one side of her face, the residual effects of a Bell’s Palsy and a few extra facial lines every year. I see someone whose love for life is second only to her love for risky adventure. Most likely, one has fed the other. I see an olive-skinned, brown-eyed, Welsh-born, Canadian-raised girl whose voluptuous curves still captivate and tantalize me. I see a face wiser from pain, hands tougher from hard work, a smile gentler and more thoughtful from raising two complicated, wonderful sons and a brow somehow more relaxed from having weathered innumerable storms, many of them my sorry gift to her.

There is a bite to her wit, at once caustic but ultimately harmless. There is a joy in her step even if that means tripping more than is generally possible for the average human. Her temper is only slightly less intimidating than being robbed at knifepoint but still contains a depth of commitment seldom seen in anyone. Her many foibles could drive a man to drink but the sweetness of her caress makes him want to share some. Her intelligence is often disarming, even challenging, but never pretentious…like mine. Her determination has yet to be matched. I’d pit her against any other puffed up, self-important Goliath of strutted accomplishment. She’d wipe the floor with him and spit on his remains. But her tenderness is surprising given the distance between her hot and cold.

She is real. There is absolutely no bullshit with this staggering woman. Excellent, since she as I, loathe the feigned perfection and careful posturing of the ecclesiastical housewife set. Don’t expect much mercy if religious smoke screen faith is your chosen faith expression. You’ll wither quickly in the shadow of her raw and easy way and run all the way home, the look of shock and dismay still on your blanched face. Good girl, sweetheart. Show ‘em that Christian girls can be punchy and sexy with BBC cheekiness, and still know how to dish out justice and love to the least of these.

Her name is Rae – short, no nonsense, to the point, but sunny as is homophonetically suggested. She has no middle name. She needs none. One name means one of a kind, making it unchangeable to something lesser and untrue or greater and elitist. Daddy insisted, since anything more would muddy the waters for his one and only girl. Their only child. Poor buggers.

She survived, even thrived, at a fundamentalist Christian college for a time and then pounded out a history/geography degree at the University of Calgary. Her love for the then is even greater than her mastery of the now. We share this love for those who have forged the crucible out of which we live our lives. Years later her socio-political views are more in keeping with her hatred of greed and hypocrisy and her love for justice (you do the math.)

Our house is often messy because she’d rather write books, watch a good BBC comedy with me, party with friends, help boys with homework or go hiking in the wild on weekends. Fuck the housework. She owns it, not the other way round. Besides, in her once-lived life, lived is the key word.

She is a lover like no other. She certainly knows her way around a man. This man, thank God, body and soul. She is a passionate and scary and wonderful woman. She is my wife. 25 years worth.

She’s been so worth the effort.

Undone – a prayer, part 2

On May 11, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, poetry, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worshipLeave a comment

Great One, retire my insistence upon

remembrances of ways and times and talk

that match not God-viewed reality.

Darken my bright skies if only

to ensconce my darkness,

shattering all illusions of self-projected greatness.

Pry open the coffins of dreams long forgotten,

commitments never kept, promises never made,

if only to unleash the surprise of grace.

Scatter my nice collections of mantelpiece spiritual kitsch

and replace them with broken glass, bits of string, yesterday’s ashes

if only to remind me of my own frailty.

Tear the gilded pages from my life’s journal

and use them like fish-wrap to enfold

someone else’s yet to be written story.

Plant new gardens of life

from places of my own death.

Spur on to greatness the little ones

from my own obscure forgottenness.

Prop up their ailing mistresses of peace and hope

with the severed arms of my own distress.

Renew in light the victimized, en-shadowed and de-spoiled

with my own pursuits fit only for stolen kingships.

Undone – a prayer

On May 4, 2013May 4, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation9 Comments

I’ve been taking a break from my series, “Reflections on Faith and Art” to bring some other stuff important to me right now. Prayer is close to the top of that list. Granted, writing, specifically poetry, is a contemplative prayer practice, I’ve always found the writing of prayers themselves to be, well, prayer. Here is one I posted to Facebook that seemed to bless. Hence, I thought I’d bring it here in the hope that it blesses a few more. Shalom, dear friends.

Lord, show me a place to tie the ends

that beg to be braided into multiple strands

joined in singular purpose.

Lift the fog enough to see the edges of solidity,

and fray the ends of cords I only think I need

to tie my world together.

Unleash into my presumptive skies

the birds of purgation carrying with them

twigs and branches for the task.

Let me author the story of my own demise

if through my disappearance you fill

someone else’s stifling horizon.

Swell in the hopeless heart

a future of light through my abiding darkness.

Write someone else’s story

complete with satin ending on gilded pages

torn from the tattered book of my tired, half-written tale.

Finish others by my incompletion.

Airbrush another life

with the melted crayons of my own.

Sing another’s song

with notes plucked from my own

unfinished symphony.

Make yourself heard in the silence of my song.

My big prayer experiment

On April 19, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, sacramental living, spiritual formation4 Comments

It is a strange thing indeed that God bids us ask, seek and knock when, with little room for doubt, we stand squarely at the center of the very hurricanes from which we then seek God’s rescue. It can be stated unequivocally that I will ask for things from selfish motivation, seek for answers to my own pet projects built on projections of someone I mistakenly believe to be the biblical God and then knock on doors I only think will lead to an enhanced sense of well-being and happiness which, in and of itself, grows out of my own ego and is misguided to begin with.

And yet, God bids us come. Why? What is there to be gained through misplaced asking, misguided seeking and misdirected knocking? Is prayer somehow a test of our faithfulness? Our orthodoxy? Does God simply use all of this to plumb our propensity toward righteousness? Unrighteousness? Test our mettle? Prove our character? Uncover poor mental health? Check for bowel obstructions?

I share here the three greatest gifts to my prayer life. Ever. One: contemplative prayer or, as I like to call it, prayer without agenda. It is a practice of which I cannot seem to get enough and about which I long to learn more. I have delighted in becoming a novice of this ancient art and try to practice it numerous times a day. The second gift to my prayer life: bring the roses along with the shit, neither of which impress nor vex God in any way. So, if like the Psalmist, I can come to God on my worst day, in my worst mood, smelling of my worst sin, for the worst reasons and God still stubbornly delights in my presence…well then, I say, “let’s go!” Since God is well aware of the even deeper levels of dark felch in which I so momentously swim why not come anyway and see what happens? Right? Or, am I just ridiculously stupid? (to answer is your prerogative but, know this, you run the risk of me praying for you. And you don’t want that). Finally, intercede. Praying for others has a strange way of drawing on a deeper joy, yielding better interior fruit and somehow diminishing my inflated sense of self-need. I’m not especially good at it, but the practice is half the fun.

I do bemoan something however. For five years we lived in a small, tourist, college town in Oregon. It was located in the middle of some of the most richly verdant, mystical territory I’ve yet seen. It was also less than a half hour drive from not one but three monasteries. The one of my choice where I spent countless hours giving God the finger, then apologizing, then wiping my tears, then repeating the process was a Trappist Abbey a mere forty-five minute bike ride from our house. There it was that God flayed the dead skin from my ailing soul on more occasions than I can count. There I sought God’s counsel on major life decisions. There I spent three days crying and screaming through uncountable tears and unspeakable pain when, for a time, my wife and I separated. There I would pray and laugh with the brothers who knew more dirty jokes and more great Merton quotes than I’ll ever know in a lifetime. By the way, never let anyone feed you a false bill of goods on monks. They’re bad-ass dudes with bad habits (pun intended), worse breath and still worse sense of comic timing. But honesty? Depth? Love? Oh yes.

Geography or setting does not determine good or bad prayer. It can help however. This post signifies the beginning of a search, a sort of prayer experiment if you will, in seeking out a new sacred spot where God and I can swear at each other through loving and mutual tears. Without further verbose delay, I give you my journal entry from day 1 of this search:

“Egad, my soul is desperately thirsty. I need to pray fervently for a space to pray fervently. At times like this I wish I was a 20 minute drive from the Trappist Abbey where I could go and work out my salvation submerged in beauty and the green, deep stillness. Lord, how I miss that place. How I miss the spirit of learning, the ethos of readiness, of dark corner catacombs out of which came light and goodness, bright, and the silent choir of active contemplation.

Lord, show me a place to tie the ends that beg to be braided in multiple strands joined in singular purpose.

Lift the fog enough to see the edges of solidity, and fray the ends of cords I only think I need to tie my world together.

Unleash into my presumptive skies the birds of purgation carrying with them twigs and branches for the task.

Let me author the story of my own demise if through my disappearance you fill someone else’s stifling horizon.

Swell in the hopeless heart a future of light through my abiding darkness.

Write someone else’s story complete with satin ending on gilded pages torn from the tattered pages of my tired, half-written tale.

Finish others by my incompletion.

Airbrush another life with the melted crayons of my own.

Sing another’s song with notes plucked from my own unfinished symphony.

Why not join me in prayer? We’ll pray for each other and see what epic tales emerge…

Check out the Trappist Abbey here.

Prayer picture: www.julieamarxhausen.wordpress.com

Finding Today

On April 7, 2013April 7, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation13 Comments

It is surprising how much time one can spend yearning for an unknown future or pining after a rose-colored past. I for one have lived too much in this unhealthy and unnecessary tension. The healthy version of the already but not yet is the glowing embers of a faith in what has already happened, what is presently happening and what is still to happen. That is a tension worth exploring.

I am speaking in more general terms. Today is like no other before it and unlike anything to come. It is absolutely unique in every way. Of course, it will have many features seemingly identical to those previously experienced that will give it a certain…predictability, at times ennui. But, for anyone seeking to practice life with God, it is anything but. Life can be routine but hardly predictable and never dull. Therefore, it pays to be consistently grateful and regularly hopeful.

I entered this day with old, familiar fears, recognizable yearnings and comfortable proclivities; the stuff that is my warp, woof and wake. God is not unfamiliar with these things in me. Nor is God particularly vexed by them since, to quote G.K. Chesterton, “sin [read all that doesn’t quite make the grade in life’s terms] is the least interesting thing about us to God.” Good thing because I’m especially gifted at it and have a few spectacular ones to my credit. Viewed through the wrong lens, they might easily be misconstrued as a jaunty tip of the hat to the devil (who or whatever that is).

To live life perched atop the twin cliffs of unfulfilled longing and unrealized dreams is to lean precariously over a bubbling cauldron of self-pity and willful blindness. That is an ugly, unwelcome concoction to be sure. It smells bad. It’s dangerous and never very fortifying. God brings so many people into my life. Some want someone to hear them laugh and rejoice. Others are hurting, needing the Jesus touch, which, at that exact moment, can only be brought by me. God is both willing and fully capable of doing so without me. But why, when I’ve been given the gift of inclusion in the secret schemes of heaven while living on earth?

The fact is that I/we, have been given life, physically and spiritually. I do not want to waste such a precious gift trying to foist upon the world the unwieldy clubs of self-pity, regret, self-doubt, self…anything. In seeking to be healed, I must seek instead to become an agent of healing. And I can only do that as I open my eyes to what my eyes first see.

In the days and months that drift lazily past like a prairie stream, things have changed. My mind has changed on stuff. I think differently about who I am and who I am not. I feel differently. I no longer feel the need to grope desperately in the darkness for any shred of passing light but, in the waning dark, revel in the growing light. As they say, “it’s a God thing.” Instead of grasping for things over which I have no control, I am striving to submit honestly and readily to things as they are; the life I am currently living.

The life I have is the one I embrace. Regardless of what may still be lacking, I lean into all that is and hope for what can be; for what is yet to come.

I am finding today.

Easter Freedom Through Lenten Doubt

On March 31, 2013March 26, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worshipLeave a comment

A website on which I am blessed to share blogs is ConversationsJournal. The following was a post I shared in February at the beginning of Lent. Today, as Easter puts an end to Lent and begins a time of resurrection celebration hinting at ascension, I wish to share it here. I trust it has been a blessed journey for you and your loved ones. Let’s continue that journey together in the mutual love of the Blessed Kingdom.

Easter Freedom Through Lenten Doubt

Peace, R

Picture is of “The Resurrection” by Carl Heinrich Bloch and can be found here