St. Patrick’s Day – Why the world needs the Celts

On January 7, 2012March 17, 2018 By robertalanrifeIn celtic music, celtic spirituality, Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, liturgy, music, sacramental living, spiritual formation, the arts, worship17 Comments

Today is Saint Patrick’s Day. A guy has to be a press-ready, crowd-pleasing commodity to get his own day. But, perhaps I’m just jealous. Besides maybe Saint Columba, he’s our best known Celt. And, in honour of his Celtic lineage, I share the following.

When one thinks of the term Celt or Celtic what images spring to mind? Is it the Pictish war-paint donned by William Wallace in Braveheart as he prepares to take Scottish troops into yet another conflagration with England? Is it the Military Tattoo at Edinburgh Castle where hundreds of overly plumed peacock pipers and drummers march to and fro in a celebration of Scotland’s warring past?

Edinburgh Military Tattoo.jpg — Edinburgh Military Tattoo, Edinburgh Castle

Is it the drunken party at the local pub as it becomes abundantly apparent that you’ve walked into some secret society, all of whom are experts on their instruments, can drink more than any human should be capable of but with whom you feel completely welcome? Is it the great standing crosses of Ireland? Is it Larry Bird?

Whatever one may think of the Celts, one thing is sure: they were a people absolutely unique in history and centuries ahead of their time. They were an aural culture, a bardic people of story, song, poetry and mythology. As such there exists a great deal of misunderstanding regarding their exact history. In fact, they seem quite simply to have passed out of existence like a fisherman’s boat sailing into the morning mist.

One example of this relates to something many bagpipers, including myself, play on the bagpipes: Piobaireachd. Let us review that spelling, shall we?

P I O B A I R E A C H D.

It was never their intention to leave any letters for anyone else. Piobaireachd is the co-mingling of 2 Scots Gaelic words: piobaire, or piping with eachd, music. Hence, piped or piping music. Piobaireachd is the classical music of the highland bagpipe and is loosely based on the musical idea of a theme and variations. It was most likely developed by a highland clan dynasty of the MacCrimmons, ancestral pipers to the MacLeod clan on the Isle of Skye. But since there remains so little written evidence of the clan and their history, many believe them, and their development of piobaireachd, to be the fanciful fabrications of folklore.

There is plenty that we do know that can benefit us, however. The Christianity that emerged in Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany, Gaul, Isle of Man, Scotland and Wales possessed some valuable gifts. I list here but a few.

The Celtic Christianity that thrived, undivided, from roughly the fifth through the twelfth centuries, is as deeply influenced by the culture in which it was birthed as the culture that was transformed by it. It is the child of the pagan culture that preceded it. We rationalists squirm a little at this idea.

We need the Celts because of their love for the poetic imagination and artistic creativity, building on a rich tradition of bards who sang the shared stories and exploits of her kin.

We need the Celts because of their similar love for kinship, relations and the warmth of a hearth. Their love of hearth and kinship translated in spiritual terms to what they called “anam cara” or “soul friends”, those with whom they shared their deepest joys, fears, sins, hopes, dreams.

The Celts were forever at odds with Mother Rome. To my mind, this equates to a paradox or at least to a willing suspension of seeming opposites. On one hand they were as profoundly Catholic as any other sect of Medieval Christendom. They yearned to be part of the larger Christian family. That is the Celtic way. On the other, they ever marched to the beat of their own drum – a Catholicism swimming in the quasi-pagan, swarthier style of the brooding Celts. They were both in and out.

How quintessentially Celtic.

We need the Celts because they insisted on the equality of all people in the eyes of God. They celebrated an egalitarianism in everything even allowing women to perform the Mass, a heresy of the first order even in contemporary, post Vatican II Catholicism! While worshippers throughout Europe frequented any number of great cathedrals, the Celts preferred smaller, homemade altars around which they would celebrate a deeply intimate Eucharist. Especially irksome to Rome was their liturgical calendar taken more from Druidic astrology than the accepted Church calendar. Rogues to the core, what’s not to love?

We need the Celts because of the monastic communities that flowered in Britain and elsewhere that became centers of classical education and learning, even possessive of literature outlawed by the Holy Roman Empire. As such, it can be said without exaggeration that the Celts kept knowledge alive and growing throughout the Middle Ages.

We need the Celts for their great love for the natural world and for preaching a God who loved it, too. They attached particular significance to particular animals, numbers, places and natural objects. Their spirituality was mystical in character, bathed in silence and solitude but rooted squarely in the everyday. It was a rich blend of the immanence and transcendence of God.

Skye 57.jpg — Quiraing Ridge, Skye. With this as inspiration, who wouldn’t see the sacred everywhere?

We need the Celts because of their unquenchably adventurous spirits, well known as explorers and/or missionaries to many places. Some have suggested that they may have been some of the earliest explorers to South America where Peruvian artwork mimics Celtic knot work.

We need the Celts to broaden our sense of time. They had an understanding of time that was less chronological than kairotic. In other words, they were not especially linear in their approach to life, love, faith and relationships. They valued the cyclical dimension of time, believing that by immersing themselves in the seasons of the year and uniting their lives with the liturgical seasons of the church, they could more effectively celebrate their journey through the sacredness of time.

We need the Celts for a further distinctive, related to their concept of time; their appreciation of ordinary life. Theirs was a spirituality characterized by gratitude, and in their stories we find them worshipping God in their daily work and very ordinary chores. We, as they, can see our daily lives as a revelation of God’s love.

We need the Celts since their spirituality has great ecumenical value, transcending the differences, which have divided Christians in the East and the West since before the Reformation.

We need the Celts because, unlike we who are often more interested in what to believe than Who to follow, their Christianity was a way of life, a spirituality lived gratefully each day, one day at a time.

Finally, we need the Celts because they give us reason and opportunity to party in the presence of the God who loves us.

I’m in!

Glimpses – awakening to the indescribable

On January 2, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn bagpipes, celtic music, celtic spirituality, Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, music, sacramental living, spiritual formation, the arts, worship2 Comments

Early in a new year, and a leap year at that, I want to take a stab at describing what cannot adequately be described. As a contemplative and a musician, I have met, from time to time, with mystical experiences that beggar explanation, categorization or temporal understanding. In order to do so, a short preface.

At the foundation of Christian spirituality is the very basic principle of awakening or awareness. It comes in many different packages, under numerous ideologies, representative of a host of approaches each with practices that lend themselves to one’s emerging spiritual life.

To become aware is to wake from some form of slumber, sleep or sloth. One of the mysteries of spiritual awareness is that one does not awaken naturally. We are prodded awake by the loving work of God upon the sleeping soul. It requires this nudge of God upon our shoulder before any meaningful process of receptivity and relationship can occur. In order for us to ‘awake to our awakening’ we must receive the whisper of God speaking grace into the spiritual ear of our understanding.

I do not speak so much of the prophetic proclamation to “arise, shine; for your light has come.” No, before we can be so attuned to the prophet’s voice calling us to faithfulness and righteousness, we must first hear the voice of the Lover calling us to succumb to this wooing upon which our only response can be, “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”

As comforting and romantic as that sounds, however, upon awakening to the first primal strains of the song of God, there comes a dissonance amidst the lilting notes. We awake to beauty and begin to see that which we have always yearned after but of which we were unaware, blind. This, however, can often be a fearful and groggy experience. Cobwebs yet invade our minds unaccustomed to such sharpness of color. Ears that have been plugged up suddenly pop as our inner altitude changes. It is as disorienting as it is invigorating…

I remember places, glimpses into…something; an awareness that hints at a proximity to the indescribable, numinous presence of God. These are never easy things to describe, but there is a delight in the attempt for, in so doing, I am taken back to some of those places. Not always, but for me it is often some dusty, old church or monastery; most often at night, alone. Yet, not alone. As I have since come to believe, they were, as the Celts called them, thin places where a barely perceptible sheath surrounds the holy otherness of God and where comes a mystical awareness of God so immanent that one feels he can literally smell God’s breath, touch God’s skin. These experiences have often made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Ironically, they used to happen often when I was a boy, long before I had any faith lexicon or tidy systematic theology with which to scrub them up and describe them away. I recall one particular time as I lay on our living room floor. I was probably eight or nine years old and, as I did every year, was watching the first snowfall of winter as flakes danced past the streetlight that stood outside our house. In that moment, I became curiously aware of a haunting peace that arrested my sensibilities and held me spellbound in what I can only describe as ‘rightness.’ In that moment, the cosmos and I were one. God, as I now understand God, was laying beside me on the living room floor that night, whispering wordless words to me, convincing me of my place in it all, be it ever so miniscule.

Another such thin place for me was an Anglican Church sanctuary in Nelson, British Columbia where for a number of years I taught at a Highland Bagpiping School (a place where other strange souls like myself learn to tame a five-legged creature destined to arouse suspicions and rouse neighbors). Connections in the community opened the door, figuratively and, in this case, literally, to spend as much time as I wanted in the church sanctuary after everyone else had gone home. I was given a key and carte blanche run of the place.

Most evenings after a long day of bagpipe students, some whiny, some lazy, all of them noisy, I would retire to this sanctuary with my pipes. For an hour or so I would simply play, enjoying the epic reverberance of the sound bouncing off the hard stone walls and floor. It was, for me, the closest I had yet been to what I might have then described as heaven. At times it was 2:00 am before finally getting back to my room.

A third such place was the hospital chapel in the same city. I was falling apart after a recent break-up with a girl to whom I had been engaged. My shattered interior was gradually reintegrated in that little chapel where I would weep and pray for hours, listening to John Michael Talbot, or the Monks of the Weston Priory sing beautifully doleful refrains. It was for me, through gallons of heart-crushing tears, the perfect requiem to my dying peace of mind. It would become the Introit to a new place of healing and restoration, albeit gradually. This is a story best left unfinished…

Landscape lunacy – a lesson in second chances

On December 19, 2011 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation2 Comments

It was a Friday afternoon, and as is often the case in Yakima, it was sunny. The ravages of time spent pursuing my master’s degree have pulled me away from all things maintenance or repair for over three years. My trees and shrubs have stood in desperate need of trimming and care. It could only have come as welcome relief then to have a smiley, albeit toothless, lass show up at our door advertising late-season, cut-rate landscaping. In typical impulsive manner I jumped at the opportunity, as did they – a little too quickly as I was about to discover.

The team, hiding behind the very arbor vitae they were about to attack with a vengeance, was already busily scurrying about, donning gloves and prepping power tools. I was whisked away by the business owner to hear of the state of my trees – much worse than I otherwise might have guessed – and given what seemed a genuine offer of help in the midst of these woes. Like some insidious romantic waltz of gullibility I succumbed to their convincing arguments, agreeing to a price for work they could do, apparently, in hours; work that hadn’t been done by me in far too long. I was giddy with anticipation; a good price, a fast turnaround, and big check off my enormous to-do list.

Most grown-ups would have caught on to the questionable practice of money down, the rest on completion. I, however, was already inwardly rubbing my hands together with glee at the notion of a quick, cheap fix to one of many tasks that had faced me down for too long to rationally consider this reality. I clumsily wrote him two cheques for the same amount each from two separate accounts to get the party started.

After this first breach of protocol, even the dullest of the dull would have thought it odd that the tree cutting procedure already underway at a break-neck speed was already over for the day and had been done using my ladders. Within mere minutes of beginning they complained of an issue with one of their tools and that they would need to shut down long enough for them to get a part to fix it. They left my yard, cheques in hand; one tree all but demolished with branches strewn about like a noisy hurricane had blown through, a broken gutter and…quiet.

Normally quiet is a rare commodity sought out in the eye of any given Rife-induced storm of chaotic self-absorption. This one however would last for weeks. What would follow was a flurry of unanswered phone calls and a host of inane excuses with both my yard and my pride lying in ruins. I received a call from somewhere that one of the cheques I had written was NSF and they begged me to obtain cash for them so they might carry on with the job, tools intact. That’s when I snapped out of it. Right? Nope, even that didn’t wake me up to the completely idiotic nature of this scenario!

I actually drove to the bank where I secured for them the desired amount. Upon returning home, one of the crew showed up to collect their cash and then promptly left. At least two of them stayed long enough to give my remaining trees a buzz cut providing my neighbors their first full view of that particular side of our house.

When they left that evening, I didn’t see them again for days. Many days. I grew increasingly restless and nervous about my hasty transaction. My trusting wife, reminding me of her own discomfort (justifiable, to say the least) with the whole affair, did little to assuage my swelling fear that I may in fact not see these people again. But, hey, I didn’t have to worry. After all, they had given me a contract signed by both parties. I possessed their actual number since we had spoken on it at least once before. It would all be fine…right?

Again, my feeble attempts at self-exhortation were failing and I found myself at a crossroads. Not to call would be a show of passivity on my part, an easy target so to speak, ripe for bullying. To call risked possibility of discovering just how stupid I really was in pursuing this “business” relationship. Besides, that meant conflict. I don’t like conflict. It doesn’t like me. We don’t do well together and just end up staring each other down from across the room where the elephant awkwardly sits chuckling to himself.

I explained my plight at our weekly staff meeting. To my chagrin I was told that a landscaping scam had been uncovered only weeks before and had been all over the news. The name of the company and its owner? You guessed it, the one I had hired, unwisely as it appeared! His face had even been plastered all over the evening news. He was a convicted felon with a cocaine addiction. I felt like the guy with the proverbial fly open or green stuff caught in his teeth. Common sense has rarely been my gift.

A subsequent Internet search confirmed these things. Over a month went by along with yet more unanswered phone calls. This time, however, it also included a call to the local Sheriff’s office. A very pissed business owner actually called me, moments before my Christmas concert, shouting obscenities at me for alerting the police. Now, my anger met with his sense of betrayal and an already terrible situation was exacerbated to epic proportions.

I was starting to succumb to fear, not so much that they would never finish but more out of a lack of trust in their intentions. I now sincerely wanted them away from our home and out of our lives. Yet more days passed. When they finally did return, they asked me to turn on the power to the outside receptacle for their task. I flew into an angry tirade, loudly suggesting that any normal person would have fired them by now but I didn’t want to see them, as workers simply caught in the middle, not be paid for jobs they obviously needed. They mysteriously left again. I was at the peak of my frustration and, quite frankly, embarrassment that this debacle had ever come into our surroundings.

I am uncertain why Johnny decided to show up about an hour later with his own tools to personally complete the job. His demeanor was clearly one of remorse, even humility, at the way the whole thing had descended into such a Slough of Despond. He shared how thankful he was that I had not given up on him, had given him a number of opportunities to prove himself, all of which had failed miserably. Within hours he had finished my yard and wrote those words I thought I’d never see in this transaction: paid-in-full.

Johnny had only recently been released from jail and was literally starting all over again. Everything: ID, job, vehicle, bank account – everything that average middle class, employed suburbanites take for granted. There’s a desperation that comes when we can see no hope on the horizon; when there seems to be no road that leads anywhere. Worse still, if we have already betrayed every trust, sullied our own name, proven tacitly untrustworthy, hurt others and succumbed to every temptation, we can easily give up hope and give in to our lower instincts. Who really cares about me? Then, why the hell should I care about anything? When every move I make only ends in further disappointment and shame, then why not get good at it?

As I step back to consider what there might be to learn from this (other than the obvious!) I am left with the echo of those words, paid-in-full. What is it that is so eminently satisfying about those words? At the time of writing I am nine years, one month and twenty-nine days sober. I remember times when I was this desperate for money as well. I also remember spending a fair chunk of it on booze. I remember well the lostness I felt when I was trapped in my own addictions. I’m not so far removed from this guy. With the benefit of some distance and not a little reflection, I actually feel sorry for him. I kinda…get it.

Both Johnny and I are men in need of grace. He, fresh out of jail, not knowing if he’ll make or not; me, often completely blind to my own prisons, only thinking that I know the way forward, walk the same road. It is the road of dependence – not merely on a job to help pay the bills, as great as that is. No, together we walk the same dark road of sin. We are brothers in wandering away from God and the good that is promised by God. Although our paths are very different, our prospects widely divergent, our place in the social strata unequal, our friendships just as needed, our possibilities for betterment unfairly placed, we yet have equal need of grace.

Sin is the great equalizer of humankind. In this, we are all the same. We are on a level playing field in matters of the human soul and its need for conversion. Where one may covet, rob and steal, another, believing himself above such things, is marked with other unseen, perhaps more insidious darkness. The Psalmist cries out, “O Lord, all my longing is known to you; my sighing is not hidden from you.” We may think the deepest sighs we utter are for employment, respect, family and freedom. Ultimately however, they are, in fact, for release from bondage to sin and death. Everyone deserves a second chance.

At least God seems to think so.

Advent – An Active Waiting

On November 23, 2011December 1, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worship2 Comments

As a Canadian citizen living in the US, I celebrate Thanksgiving twice. The Canadian version looks and tastes much like its American counterpart with one huge exception-it’s about six weeks earlier. Canadian winters are generally much more nervously insistent upon making their presence known. They never waited for anything! American Thanksgiving, rooted so much in the very history of this country, is a much bigger deal (not unlike all things American). Unfortunately…or perhaps fortunately…depending on one’s view, it often falls on the same weekend as the first week of Advent. I could spend time finding fun ways of linking those two things together. Instead, I give you my thoughts on Advent and its call for us to wait…

How many of us as kids were so uncontrollably “antsy” around Christmas time that our parents could hardly live with us? Do you recall the unbearable pangs of waiting for Christmas morning when that certain delightful item we’ve been harping about might just be waiting to greet us? We go through the motions of “being good boys and girls” so as to maximize our chances for a successful “haul” under the tree. Babies, our littlest ones – their needs are immediate, pressing and loudly trumpeted if unmet. The family has finally saved enough to indulge in that once in a lifetime vacation to somewhere even Disney couldn’t have imagined, and we’re stoked. We pace, we mark off days on our calendars, we fritter away all the endless days and hours in epic restlessness, barely hanging on to sanity in our unfettered excitement. We’re in college and the girl or boy of our dreams trips unwittingly into our orbit, and we’re smitten. We spend hours of time we don’t have simply listening to the sound of the other’s voice. For the indescribable joy of being in their presence we would gladly sacrifice grades, sleep, money, health and energy. These same young lovers graduate and get jobs at different ends of the country forcing them into that dreaded “long distance relationship.” Days feel like decades waiting for the next letter. Has he changed? Will she still find me breathtaking? Is he still faithful to me alone? Should I read into the extra day the last letter took to get here?

There really is no better time than Advent to talk about the mystery of waiting. Under the best of circumstances, the delayed gratification of waiting is not something we embrace easily. The culture we have built bullies us into thinking that unless we have the next trinket, the next job, the next vacation, the next relationship-right away-our lives are somehow incomplete. What compounds the situation is the fact that we have effectively done away with waiting through “no monthly payments, no interest for a year” or “buy now, pay later” or “sleep with me now and I’ll still love you” or “let’s order pizza since there’s no time to make dinner.” And on and on it goes.

It is said that waiting is a virtue. We’re just too anxiety ridden to be very good at it! The Bible is chock full of stories of those who waited. Noah and his family spent weeks inside a cramped handmade dumpster with some rather smelly roommates for months on end until it was safe to come out.

They waited.

Abraham and Sarah, elderly by any standards (and not without a number of impatient glitches along the way), waited almost a century to receive God’s promise of progeny.

They waited.

Joseph, a little arrogant to begin with, lands himself in a boat load of vengeance at the hands of jealous brothers and, later, had 14 years in a Pharaoh’s prison to do business with God.

He waited.

Moses, impetuous and entitled, took matters in his own hands, killing an Egyptian, and then spent 40 years shoveling sheep shit on the backside of Mt. Sinai.

He waited.

David, God’s man for Israel, was anointed King but spent years running from Saul and his upstarts before ever enjoying hat head from a crown.

He waited.

An embattled, beleaguered, divided and dispersed nation of Israel had waited for centuries to hear a prophetic voice of hope; someone to assure them that God hadn’t forsaken them. And then…a devout priest, Zechariah and his barren wife, Elizabeth, get a most unexpected message, not by UPS camel, but by an angel that they were to become parents.

They had waited.

With the birth of their son, John, who came to be called “the Baptizer”, all of the previous waiting and watching and expectations were slowly finding resolution.

We as a thirsty people wait, too. The point, however, is not that we wait, but how we wait. It should be a coveted spiritual discipline to wait well. To live with ambiguity and still be faithful; to ponder paradoxes of our lives together and still lead each other to Christ; to sojourn in those desert places where we can’t always determine the way forward and still be grateful; to be stretched by unknown outcomes to baffling problems and still be present to each other; to fight the spiritual battles we didn’t ask for and rise again, bruised but better – this is the Way of Jesus.

I pray that in all my waiting, I do so actively. An active waiting helps us not just to “bide the time” but to engage one another at our places of deepest need. We must not wait like the newly released prisoners of Pharaoh whose impatience for Moses’ return from Mt. Sinai drew them into idolatry and destructive behaviors. Let us wait, instead, as John the Baptizer bids us wait – actively – bearing fruits of repentance. Like John before us, who enjoined his listeners to “prepare the way, making straight paths” for the Messiah who would soon follow, we must not give up hope in waiting. Even more importantly, let us remember that we do not merely wait for Jesus. We wait for one another; human and fallible people with imperfections, mixed motives, families to care for and a need for community. Let us all wait actively, without pretense or rivalries or bitter hearts, until God comes to us. Then will we see that waiting makes the most sense.

Tale of a Wanderer

On November 10, 2011January 8, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn celtic spirituality, Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, liturgy, music, sacramental living, spiritual formation, the arts, worship1 Comment

What follows is the manuscript of a talk I delivered at Linfield College, McMinnville, Oregon at their Thanksgiving service in 2003.

Brendan set out with fourteen companions, travelling westward. The wind carried them to the port of Arran. Brendan said farewell to Enda and the other saints of Arran and left a blessing with them. Then they sailed due west across the ocean. It was summer, and they had a favourable brisk wind behind them, so they did not have to row. After they had spent ten days in this way, the wind lowered its loud voice and whistling. With its force spent, they were compelled to take up the oars. Brendan spoke to them, saying: “Do not be afraid, for we have our God as our guide and helper. Put up your oars, and do not toil anymore; God will guide this boat and company as God pleases.”

One day when Brendan and his company were traversing the sea, they finally happened upon the little country they had been seeking for seven years; that is, the Land of Promise. As it says in the proverb, “He who seeks, finds.” When they approached the land and were entering its harbour, they heard the voice of a certain elder speaking to them: “O holy pilgrims, tired men who have searched for this country for so long, remain where you are a little while and rest from your labours.” When they had done so, the elder said, “Dear brothers in Christ, do you not see that this is glorious and lovely land on which human blood has never been shed? Leave everything that you have in your boat, except the few clothes you are wearing, and come on shore.” When they had landed, each of them kissed the others, and the elder wept tears of great joy. “Search and see the borders and regions of Paradise where you will find health without sickness, pleasure without contention, union without quarrel, feasting without diminution, meadows filled with the sweet scent of fair flowers, and the attendance of angels all around. Happy indeed is he whom Brendan, son of Findlug, shall summon here to join him, to inhabit forever and ever the island on which we are now.”

When they saw Paradise in the midst of the ocean waves, they marvelled at the wonders of God and his power.

After this, Brendan and his monks proceeded to their boat and departed from Paradise…It was thus seven years in all that it took them on the two voyages to reach the Land of Promise….At the end of that time they…proceeded to Ireland, where they dropped anchor in the sea near Limerick.

So goes the tale of St. Brendan the Navigator, one of Irish Celtic Christianity’s best known saints. As a post-everything guy (modern, evangelical, liberal, etc.), the spiritual life for me is best captured in story and in the metaphor of journey and it’s more intentional counterpart, pilgrimage.

The “tale of this wanderer” began one snowy October afternoon in 1981. Hung over, exhausted and broke, I embraced Christ (or he embraced me, you figure it out!) driving home from a 2-week stint singing in a pub in Edmonton, Alberta. I was not a reluctant convert to Christianity like C.S. Lewis, who, upon his own conversion to Christianity, “admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England”. No, instead my lifelong fascination with Christ succumbed to the “peace that passes all understanding.” Says C.S. Lewis, “there burst upon me the idea that there might be real marvels all about us, that the visible world might be only a curtain to conceal huge realms uncharted by my very simple theology.”

My first impressions of organized Christianity were as follows: Gee, this music sounds hoaky! There’s such a thing as Christian music? Ooh, time for a haircut! My how these people love to sing! And finally, look how husbands put their arms around their wives.

Time spent in hotel taverns and smoky lounges did 2 things for my soul: it helped to engender a taste for something deeper than the rum and coke that washed down the “Achy Breaky Heart” songs we were expected to play ad nauseam. I remember saying to my music partner, “if I have to sing “Good-Hearted Woman” or “Margaritaville” one more time I will positively gag!” As well, it helped me to see what I didn’t want in terms of interpersonal relationships. As a result, my early foray into the safe and sanitized walls of the local church was strange but welcome.

My first introduction to the world of discipleship was in the socially cautious environs of the Evangelical Free Church. I learned quickly that everything was a “warm-up” to the sermon. True to evangelical form, 40, 50 and sometimes 60 minute sermons kept things moving so as to ensure that all the quota of words required would be wrung out of whatever the topic of the day was. I lapped it all up like a stray cat to a bowl of milk.

There was a certain warmth and charm to those early days. Sunday evening services were where I was able to encounter something I had never encountered before – a rather enigmatic creature called – the Christian girl. Truly remarkable beings these: beautiful, articulate, compassionate, intelligent, beautiful, strong, focused, beautiful…However, as these things go, anyone who has ever been “in the band” knows that it’s the girl who gets blamed for the break-up.

Vanessa was her name and she was an Anglican (that’s Episcopalianism, Canadian style). How could I not be drawn to St. Laurence Anglican Church to discover together with her all that it had to offer? Since Christianity was so new to me, it was bound to make an impression. And again, as a faith-rookie, I was struck by a few uninformed first impressions: this is also Christianity? Wow, sooooo many books to hold. So, where are we anyway? How perfectly unified this all is.

Everything had purpose, nothing was wasted, all was intentional and in order. It was blissfully wonderful. We were not to remain at St. Laurence for long as we were also introduced to a local Pentecostal pastor at a college group event. This introduction led to an investigation of Neighbourhood Church where I would ultimately be baptised. The journey took a sharp jog as this church, typical of many churches in Calgary, split over issues I didn’t even understand at the time. I took a part-time ministry at one half as Pastor of Music and Youth ministries.

Concurrent to this I had been touring with any number of Christian groups sharing music ministry on weekends at churches as different in scope as Hutterite colonies, charismatic Anglican churches, Baptist, Mennonite, and Catholic churches, to the many small conservative country churches which dot the countryside of the Canadian prairies. Amid their differences, the curious commonalities shared by all of them are, to this day, a wonder to me.

Deep friendships with Anglicans, Presbyterians, Catholics, Pentecostals and others of faith have helped me to appreciate the many “colours” of God. Although the foundational elements of my Christian faith have not changed, their expression is changing. Thomas Merton once remarked that “at night our vision is reversed from…day. During the day the things that are close to us are clear and visible. But at night, while we stumble about over things that are near us, the stars (invisible during the day) shine in the heavens with a clear and delicate clarity. Faith is like this.”

There is a tendency in much contemporary Christianity to remove the element of journey out of our walk with God. Says Brian MacLaren, “It’s as if we have taken what is for Jesus a starting line and turned it into a finish line. Sounds like another case of modern reductionism-going for the greatest efficiency, the most measurable results, the least common denominator…We need a post-modern consideration of what salvation means, something beyond an individualized and consumerist version.”

As a Christian I’ve always been drawn to the beauty and meaning of ancient ritual and liturgy. But, as an artist and creator, I’ve needed fresh expressions of ancient things. My own spiritual “identity crisis” is part of a larger cultural one. The shapelessness of modern life and the absence of authoritative paradigms is the cause of much thirst among many for the recovery of tradition, of cultural and historical location. This is the attraction of the historic traditions of the church, into whose established, time-proven, objective forms of devotion and worship one may enter and find oneself. And yet, in all this, my own roots remind me that, if evangelicals do anything well, it’s to exegete the Word of God to the culture with ever new methodology.

From each “stop” along the way I’ve gained a little deeper understanding of my Christian faith. And, in my mind, what all of this equates to is a montage of pictures of Christ and the church. I believe that there are many others like myself out there, those who often defy definition but are generally categorized as “post moderns.” Their journeys are circuitous like my own.

I have, for over 22 years now, been on a journey – a journey with Jesus. I’ve often said that my life was just great before encountering Christ. Jesus ruined everything! More darkness than light, more sadness than joy, more questions than answers – this has often characterized my Christian experience. Nevertheless, Jesus continues to captivate me regardless of the skin my Christianity might have. And so, like Saint Brendan, I’m a relentless traveller.

In conclusion, then, our journey, like the stylised adventures of this enigmatic Irish saint, setting out into uncharted waters seeking the riches of God will ensure that the prow of our boat will be ever wet with the spray of the open sea. The nation of Israel, whose relentless wandering through a relatively small territory should have taken a matter of weeks. It extended to 40 mind-numbing years and reminds us that either faith or fear will determine our feet. Like the disciples on the Emmaeus road, whose once expectant eyes were now downcast wrestling through dashed hopes placed in a Messiah they believed would kick Rome’s proverbial butt, we realize that our expectations can often be misplaced and our journey never gets appreciably easier. Indeed the spiritual “life on the road” pictured by Brendan, the nation of Israel and the disciples of Jesus, invites rigour, chaos, uncertainties and indecision. But also reward for, as C.S. Lewis says in the Chronicles of Narnia, “all will find what they truly seek.”

Brendan the Navigator typifies for me this curious, adventurous life bent entirely upon finding all that God has for one’s life regardless of risk or sacrifice or consequence. At worst, it reminds me that my walk with God, although curious, has more often than not been characterized by a confusing trek through “flavour of the month” Christianity.

One could ask at this juncture, what on earth does any of this have to do with Thanksgiving? Well, if a Thanksgiving sermon is what you came for, you indeed came to the right place for above all else, thankful is what I am:

I’m thankful that the banks of the meandering river of Christianity wending its way through my soul have never been out of my sight. I’m thankful that the Body of Christ is more beautiful and complex and mysterious than Western, modernist, consumerism would have us believe. I’m thankful that I’m given, along with all of us, the great invitation to journey with God in Christ. I’m thankful that wherever the journey goes, there exists at each crossroad the “everlasting way” sometimes just beyond our peripheral vision but underpinning all that we are. I’m thankful that, like the disciples on the road to Emmaeus, though our journey be fraught with darkness and fear, the oft hidden Christ walks alongside to illumine the path of the lonely. And, I’m thankful that, in this pilgrimage to newness and life there is always a place to call home. And where does this journey end? When our pilgriming souls come to their eternal goal – love and eternity. May it be so.

Jars of clay – a prayer

On October 11, 2011October 4, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation, worshipLeave a comment

Lord, you have exalted your name above the heavens. Your name means grace and peace and wonder to all who speak it in faith and love. You have chosen to use weak and broken vessels to be your eyes and hands and feet in this world. It seems, Lord, that you often pass your glory through the ordinary, the fragile, the imperfect.

In this, Lord, we are honored – but humbled.

You ask us to mirror grace, love and faithfulness to the world – the very grace, love and faithfulness eloquently displayed in Jesus Christ. Through him, you promise to give us all we need to live rich and holy lives in our communities, our families and in this world.

Mysterious God, what a great salvation.

We sinned, you forgave.

We turned away, you gave chase.

We rebelled, you paid for it.

We forgot, you remembered.

We are often faithless, you are ever faithful.

We complain, you are patient!

Lord, do not allow us to make excuses for ourselves, hiding as we do in the limits of our humanness. Although we are perfectly aware of how inadequate we are to the task, help us to see ourselves as you do, as reconcilers, as peacemakers, as redeemed kingdom builders. If we are dull, make us shine. Lord, take these imperfect jars of clay and make them to be holy cups of pure grace, forged in your desires for us.

Make it so.

Image: Steve Lavey

Silence of the Fall

On October 9, 2011October 4, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation1 Comment

Around this time last year, I took time for spiritual refreshment in Ocean Shores. What follows are a few of my thoughts on that time away…

It is surprising just how many toxins build up in our spirits when we neglect regular periods for silence, solitude and spiritual refreshment. What an affront to our self-referentialism to discover that the world has gotten along famously without our invaluable contributions. Nevertheless, it remains an immensely challenging undertaking to willingly disengage for a few days in order to re-engage the deeper things – God and those archetypal realities of our meager existence.

My house stands in need of significant repair, my wife deserves my attention, my sons need a father and my employer needs me to make the trains run on time. To retreat from our responsibilities requires our brazen intention to be vulnerable before God with no guarantee of visible returns on the investment of time.

Be that as it may, I took three days last week in Ocean Shores to enjoy silence, contemplation, reading, writing and sleep; not necessarily in that order! It’s enlightening how a good, long drive is always like Drano to a clogged soul or foggy mind. I guess that’s why there are so many good road trip stories. Few things are so fast acting in ironing smooth the unsightly spiritual wrinkles that beset us. And, for me, there is absolutely no better time to do so than the fall. Everything feels different in the fall. There is a hesitancy about the passing hours that seems somehow not so…insistent. The world is not so in-your-face cheery and the sunlight’s less gaudy rays lie slanted on blushing trees, caressing the sadder sky in reassuring gestures that although winter is crouched and ready, she too, must pass like autumn before her.

Pursuing silence in the fall has always offered far more treasures for mystics like me. I am reminded of a line from a Chris de Burgh song, “there’s nothing quite like an out of season holiday town in the rain.” Amen to that. Take away the touristy stores full of shiny, campy bobbles attractive only to our covetous need for yet more worthless shit and we’re given permission to exhale.

Our need for silence mirrors Jesus’ similar need. It’s instructive to see the unabashed willingness of Jesus to turn his back on the madding crowd and escape to the hills under cover of night to meet his Father. He understood his own personal rhythms well and could thus obtain maximum benefit from such times of solitude. From there he changed the world. It is just that self-awareness for which I yearn. In such times an unseen door opens that invites us to see what God sees – and what God sees is remarkable…

Thanks to Lois Keffer for the use of your awesome Photoshop pic!

“The Woman at the Mart”- reenvisioning an old story

On September 22, 2011September 26, 2011 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation1 Comment

Today, she wasn’t sitting in her usual place by the window sipping Heineken and waiting for “callers.” No, today was Wednesday, her day to go “to the burbs” and see how the other half lived. She liked to shop in those big, fancy grocery stores with all those pretty people who would never frequent her regular haunts. She had a whiskey voice, painted her make-up on with brush and roller and donned leather and spandex like a uniform – the requirements of her station. It was rare for anyone to ever talk to her when she went there. Indeed, it was more common to endure the leering gestures of young ne’er-do-wells under a dare. Or maybe the ‘GAP’ outfitted hard-bodies who only ever looked at her through their peripheral vision long enough to make her feel the sting of their unspoken judgments.

Today, something was different.

His appearance was that of anyone she might have met during any other visit to this bastion of pretension, role-playing, and economic benefit. He wore no brand names that she could see and, for the most part, was indistinguishable from his rather astonished group of buddies (she counted 12) who pretended to be shopping nearby. He politely asked her for the time. She told him she never wore a watch. Her instinctive reaction was that this guy was merely sizing her up like every other guy she’d ever met. But something told her to stay and talk with him. His eyes bespoke a certain gentleness and, contrary to the norm, never left hers.

“Funny, all this food around and so many hungry souls,” he said.

“Yeah, I watch the news. You’re not one of them ‘bleedin’ heart’ types who gets sucked in by the skinny, little African kids on TV, are ya?”

“Well, actually I was speaking in a more…metaphorical sense. I mean, people keep coming back again and again to this place, filling carts to overflowing with stuff that never ultimately satisfies.”

“People gotta eat, don’t they?”

“Sure. But it’s what they don’t eat that keeps them hungry.”

She couldn’t decide whether she was annoyed enough at his rather enigmatic statements to promptly shut this down or intrigued enough to hang around for more. She decided to take the plunge.

“Whaddya mean? Eatin’s simple enough. Ya eat, ya get hungry, ya buy more food.”

“True enough, but I can give you whole storage bins of food that will keep you going forever.”

“OK, count me in. Where do I sign up?”

“Go get your husband and we’ll chat some more.”

She gazed at him incredulously.

“Yeah right. Take a good look, buddy. Do you really think I’m the marrying type?”

“Well, who was that guy who dumped you in the alley last week after he pretended to have good intentions? You’re lucky to be alive.”

Silence.

“Uuuh… how’d you know about that?”

“You’d be surprised what I know about you.”

Normally a statement so bold and presumptuous would have frightened her to death. Instead she stood mesmerized with curiosity.

“Come on”, he said, “let’s us grab a coffee, I’ve got lots more to tell you.”

I often wonder how many “women at the Mart” we, and Christ by association, pass by every day. How many such folks, who are branded as social losers whether spoken or implied, show up at our door each week? How do such people find Jesus through our language, postures, and “guise” of faith?

Picture the following: the second generation drug user, who has never been inside any church building, who not only doesn’t own a Bible but has never even seen one; the angry youth with self-imposed atheism and hatred of the establishment, especially religious, who stumbles upon us by sheer “accident” looking for the very answers she neither wants nor understands; the desperately bedraggled single Mom who, by incredible force of will against her body’s weary protests, pulls all three of her unimpressed children out of bed on Sunday morning to head to the church she has driven by dozens of times but who, today, inexplicably feels the need to attend; the fifty-one year old executive, let go by a boss half his age through “corporate down-sizing”, forced with the decision to take a 50% cut in pay or face entirely changing the only career he has ever known. All that in a marketplace environment which worships “young and fresh”, disdaining whatever experience he has painstakingly accumulated over his 30 year career; the 15-year-old pastor’s daughter whose quest for attention and a “cool” testimony becomes pregnant casting her family’s reputation and ministry into disrepute and chaos; the high school drop out whose body bruises never have enough time to heal until more appear at the hands of an alcoholic father; the drug addicted mother whose “street time” is only interrupted long enough for her to disappear for days at a time to some crack house where her personal esteem can disappear even more….

Such are the ones to whom Jesus says, “come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest”. Such are the ones who “once…were alienated from God…but now [are] reconciled…by Christ’s physical body through death….” Such are the ones about whom Jesus says, “your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.” Such are the ones we are called to seek and serve. As disciples of Christ, what should we do in preparation for such a lofty and costly call?

Whatever it takes.

To worship is to ask, seek, knock

On September 13, 2011September 15, 2011 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formationLeave a comment

Corporate worship, its liturgical direction and artistic support has, for many years, been a big part of my personal and professional life. In fact, for the past fifteen years it has been my bread and butter. Whether I have been involved as lay person or “professional” staff, these things have occupied much of my waking hours. I love to reflect on them. I’ve done so for many years now. The following is one of those.

“Worship” as defined by Webster’s Dictionary: “The act of paying reverence to God”. Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words defines worship this way: “to make obeisance (a bow or a bend of the knee indicating submission or homage); do reverence to.” The original Greek word, “proskuneo” literally means, “to kiss toward”. Moreover, our English word for worship is transliterated from the Old English, “worthschipe” denoting a sailing vessel of total reliability worthy of our complete trust.

The worship of God is nowhere defined in Scripture. But, as we consider the 5 different biblical verbs used for worship we see that it is the act of praising God but not confined to it. Broadly, worship “may be regarded as the direct acknowledgement of God, of God’s nature, attributes, ways and claims, whether by the outgoing of the heart in praise and thanksgiving or by deeds done in such acknowledgment” (Vine’s, pg. 236). However, with so little in the way of specifics, worship is the central activity of the Christian church.

The words “Praise” and “Worship” are often used interchangeably in the Scriptures. I believe this tells us that, insofar as the activity of worship is concerned, we worship God as we praise God. We ascribe to God adoration, praise, honor and blessing as this is fitting for the created toward the Creator.

There is great blessing in the invitation of Jesus to ask, seek and knock. As it relates to worship, it can provide a wonderful freedom to carve out a worship which is unique to each local congregation – like a tattoo delineating one group from another. As the Church of Jesus Christ faces, together, the dawning of new things in her midst, a continued courage and commitment will reap rich reward in the future.

New endeavors in any field of inquiry will present many experiences, responses and potentialities which challenge the current understanding. And, expanding our understanding of worship can become a wonderful expose of who is in our own faith communities seeking after meaning in Christ and for those already here who want to experience Jesus in a whole new way.

The art of seeking God in Christ is one which demands of us whole new ways of thinking and being. We are called upon by the God of grace and forgiveness to become small, needy and broken. Herein lies the difficulty with our contemporary way of thinking, which suggests that to live is to accumulate, to produce, to do. In this milieu, I most certainly journey, for even in writing this I am confronted with the reality that what God calls us to – honesty, integrity, humility and simplicity – is not simply an extra way to spend my time – but the only way.

To do or not to do: a short reflection on Sabbath

On September 2, 2011 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formationLeave a comment

I take a short break of posting about my accident of last year to post this:

Why is it that I practically live for Fridays? As a Presbyterian Church music director with a steady Sunday gig, Friday is my Sabbath. It is the day most likely to be given over to nothing. Such is the freedom given us in the created order: a day to waste. What is it about this day that engenders such anticipation all week and, at the same time, impatience once it arrives?

What will I do today? Better still, what will I not do today? What if I do the wrong things all day and I’m left dissatisfied, wanting for that unnamed thing I might otherwise have done? More likely, what if I waste the entire day second-guessing whether I did or didn’t do what I set out to do or not do?

This is what happens when we’re presented with one day is to live without agenda. Our ridiculously over-busy, to-do list driven lives train us well in the art of hectic minutiae. Like Pavlov’s dog, we salivate whenever bells ring or buzzers sound offering us the juicy bone of self-satisfied accomplishment.

Life is too often an unending romp in the fast-food ball pit with the rest of the over-sugared kids when what we need most is to find the turd at the bottom and get hastily pulled back out where it doesn’t smell so much like sweat and urine! At least when our ball pits of shame are roped off for sterilization we get to see the interesting faces of those with whom we have shared the experience.

The need to incessantly do something is built into the DNA of our fast food, sitcom culture. When we stumble across that rare soul who takes Sabbath rest seriously we think him lazy or even misguided. We glare disapprovingly over the tops of our day timers, cell phones at the ready, sitting impatiently, green-light souls at an eternal red light. Clearly time management skills wed to a lack of prioritization have led this irresponsible oaf to simply throw away an entire day. After all, we inwardly tell ourselves in congratulation, we are to “redeem the time for the days are short.”

However, when we do finally grace ourselves with even a single moment to reflect, we admit that we’re not a little envious of such a one. When envy moves over for curiosity that, in turn, births an inner longing, we stand on the doorstep of God’s gift of Sabbath rest.

Gotta go. I’m not finished wasting time…

Robert Rife, September 2, 2011 (but who’s counting?)