Viral Virulence

On February 1, 2023 By robertalanrifeIn Christianity, Evangelical Covenant Church, faith, life together, sacramental living, Serve Globally, The ChurchLeave a comment

Today marks twelve years since I started this blog. Twelve years. Let me say that one more time, since it sounds so strange: TWELVE YEARS! How grateful I am to have just a tiny corner of the blogosphere in which to engage you lovely co-sojourner pilgrims. You’ve faithfully followed and read, subscribed, liked, commented, and shared posts. It has meant the world to me. A little community, a global one, intent on learning more about the movements of the human soul under the watchful eye of a loving God (no, this is not Handmaid’s Tale “under his eye” material!).

To honour twelve years I am posting a hard-hitting piece by someone else I admire and follow, Dr. Kevin Young. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

First, as an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Covenant Church serving as a global worker with our missions arm, Serve Globally, in Edinburgh, Scotland, this piece really stuck with me.

Second, since my job puts me in direct contact with people of all races and colours all wanting space at God’s banquet table, this piece really stuck with me.

Third, as one deeply entrenched in the world of scripture: lectio divina, exegesis, homiletics and more, this piece really stuck with me.

I hope you will log onto Dr. Kevin’s blog, support as you’re able, and interact with his excellent material. It is well worth your time. It certainly has been for me.

* * * * *

The Uneasy Business of Being Viral

How one viral post changed the trajectory of my life

It was June 2020, and I was pastoring an overwhelmingly white, justice-minded congregation with a lot of money and snowbirds to match in South Florida.

I was comfortable, and so were they…. until George Floyd.

“Speak up, speak out, get in the way. Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.”
— John Lewis

Watching the callous murder of George Floyd wrecked me.

I was angry—so very angry—but pastors have limited options for managing volatile emotions. People tend to want a pastor who will work through words at the pulpit rather than throw a punch.

But I wanted to punch something, hard. And transparently, I was most angry with myself. I had ignored decades of cries from people of color in my life. They were right, and I had been ignoring the deep racism around me.

My eyes were open, but filled with tears.

With blurred vision, I turned to social media and channeled my emotions into words and pictures, and one of those went viral.

I’ve made literally thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of social media posts over the years on Twitter, Instagram, websites, blogs, myspace, and many others… but none of them had ever gone viral… until this post on Facebook on a Monday evening.

I had run across a set of photographs from James C. Lewis, a photographer in Atlanta who had released a series of Bible character portraits a few years earlier. His goal was to depict the heroes and heroines of the Bible as people of African and Middle Eastern origins, and it featured models who identify as Asian, Native American, Hispanic, African, Middle Eastern, Black American. and West Indian.

At the time, he said: “I think it is very important to see one’s self in the scripture so that it may become real in our eyes. The whitewashing of the Bible has always bothered me.”

I stumbled across the photos quite by accident, but they moved me in ways I couldn’t fully form words around. So I selected several of my favorites from the series and posted them on my wall with this question: “Take a moment to picture the Bible characters you have heard and seen over the years. What race are they?”

Despite the fact that these characters are predominately of Semitic and African origin (i.e. people of color), since the Renaissance they have been mostly depicted as white. Just like the photographer, I grew up with a Bible that was “whitewashed.” All of the characters were white, all of the nativities were white, and all of the pictures of Jesus in our homes and surrounding churches were white.

So when I saw these images, something inside of me broke open. I couldn’t stop staring at them. They were somehow, real, in a way I couldn’t explain. They were beautiful, haunting, and somehow holy.

And, if I am honest, they were convicting.

When we become convicted by something, one of two things happens: Either we change as a result of the conviction, or we seek to mitigate the conviction by pushing hard against it and seeking instead to change the thing that is causing the discomfort.

So I assuaged my discomfort by pushing Post and going to bed.

It would be the last decent night of sleep I’d get for the rest of the week.

I woke up to almost 100 shares, and by dinner the next day it was up 300 shares… and climbing, quickly. I slept about two hours that night because the West Coast was liking, commenting, and sharing like crazy, trading off with the East Coast early to keep the snowball rolling. It’s popularity kept growing, and it was picking up speed.

I’d never had a post grow after 24 hours. I had no idea what to do or what I was in for.

My Facebook notifications were literally scrolling on my phone day and night. Every second, dozens more would show up. Great Britain, Ireland, Egypt, and Ethiopia. Turkey, Jordan, South Africa, Russia, India, and Japan.

The diversity of comments felt a bit like the Revelation image of the Throne Room of God where John saw “a vast crowd, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb.” [REV. 7:9]

It was beautiful. And I had never experienced anything like it.

94,000 people shared it. 38,000 like it. Millions of people saw it.

It was incredible. People from around the world were conversing in real-time, on my wall, about the Bible, culture, and race.

They were talking… Together!!

People were laughing about some of the outfits that had creases, “Weren’t there irons back then?” Others pointed out that there wasn’t an ugly person among the bunch (these were some of the most beautiful people I had ever seen). Many said they had never considered “color” beautiful, but these photos had changed their minds… and more importantly, their hearts.

Many were talking about the issue of race and how they had grown up never realizing the biblical characters were people of color. They couldn’t believe that they had never thought about it. Some expressed gratitude that they, for the first time, realized that they had been a bit of a racist.

For a moment people came together to share love and deep regrets.

But then, things began to take a dire turn, and they turned quickly!

What had once been hopeful and uniting quickly devolved into an online version of the Lord of the Flies. I half expected to see a pig’s head scroll up in the comments.

“This biblical character’s skin tone is too light,” one said. For another, “Far too dark.” This one’s hair was too short, another’s too long. Too young; too old. Too pretty; too ugly. Too tall; too short.

Gripe, gripe, gripe.

But the complaints I could have handled. I’m a Pastor, you know.

It was what came next that blew my mind.

Pure Hate.

People began to inject hate into the comments. It caught me off guard. I thought it was a joke at first. But then I started looking at the walls of those who were posting the hate, and, “Nope… This is who they are IRL.” Unhinged, hateful people who were saying horrific things. I simply couldn’t believe it.

I wanted to grab them by the shoulders, shake them, and shout:

“Your Momma didn’t raise you to be like this! Your dad didn’t teach you to act this way!

“Knock it off, already! Your family would be embarrassed (your family IS embarrassed) by this.”

“Grow up. LOL. Wow!”

A post that was designed to help us understand the beautiful rainbow of colors in the Bible was being hijacked by hate… by people filled with hate.

So I said something to myself that I’ve said many times over the years…

Not. On. My. Watch.

“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up, according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”
— Ephesians 4:29

WORDS CREATE WORLDS.

So many of our families, our homes, our workplaces have been decimated by our mouths. Our words have created war zones in our worlds.

As I scrolled through this terrible content and hate that was multiplying across my page, I knew that there was no way that I could be a part of creating the situation where a person of color had to see those kinds of words written about them, ever.

I could pull the post, or I could scrub the comments.

I feverishly started deleting comments, hiding posts, and blocking individuals who crossed the line. I stayed up late into the night and was back up early in the morning managing the hate. I don’t think my phone left my hand for days. I spent about 20 hours each day actively managing the comments.

But I just couldn’t keep up with the hate.

The post log shows 9,700 comments, but the reality is a total number about 2 to 3 times that.

I was amazed at the things that people were willing to say and post.

And many of these individuals self-identified as Christians!

I mean, come on. Really?!

I learned a long time ago as a Pastor: HURTING PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE.

How many times had I seen this play out in relationships, in workplaces, in congregations, but especially in families!? Fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters who were struggling with one thing or another would use words to harm those they love. Instead of dealing with the root of their problem, they chose instead to project their pain on others. It’s a recipe for disaster.

It is easy for all of us, I suppose, to take the pain and evil that we have experienced, internalize it, and then return that pain to someone else. That was certainly happening in my comment section.

The Bible flat-out calls that evil.

“Don’t repay evil for evil. Don’t retaliate with insults when people insult you. Instead, pay them back with a blessing. That is what God has called you to do.”
— 1 Peter 3:9

For what it’s worth, that’s pretty good advice.

Don’t argue with people on social media (unless they are dreadfully wrong about something really important), and for the love of God: Don’t attack people.

Give people blessings instead of insults.

That’s not easy to do.

I began to wonder how I might live this out online in the midst of so much drama and trauma. I decided I couldn’t help everyone, but maybe I could do something for a few.

Maybe I could bless some of those who had been cursed by far too many white people.

For instance, one of the bigots had been particularly brutal to a black lady who had lamented the whitewashing of the Bible. She expressed that she’d like to have a color-correct Bible for her son. So I bought her one.

I worked to help others find local congregations that were more diverse than the ones they currently attended.

I listened and apologized A LOT.

I did what I could, but eventually the fatigue caught up with me. Sometime on Friday, five days later, I threw my hands up in the air and said:

“I give up!”

I was done. I was physically exhausted, emotionally spent, and couldn’t deal with the stress of other people’s opinions anymore.

I prayed a short prayer thanking God for allowing my words and James’ pictures to travel the world, creating a dialogue about faith and race.

I closed the prayer by telling God that I hoped it never happened again.

I wasn’t cut out for this.

I don’t have the time for this.

I don’t have the mental health for this.

I knew I needed to BE FULLY PRESENT in the place where I could effect the most change: my family.

“Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.”
—Proverbs 22:6

At that moment, it dawned on me that a large number of those comments likely came from adults whose parents had failed them.

As people commented—some with beautiful and healing words, others with hateful and abusive words—I wondered how much of that was planted in them in their early years.

I know that I said that “their momma didn’t raise them to be that way” and “their father didn’t teach them to act like that”… but now I wasn’t quite so certain. I’ve known many people who weaponized their kids, passing along their partisanship, anger, racism, and hostility. You know, that whole Hebrew Scripture idea that “The sins of the fathers and mothers shall be passed down through the generations.”

Not everyone repeats the sins of their parents’ prejudices, but many do.

I needed to ensure that my four children didn’t grow up to be the type of people who needed to have their comments deleted or hidden by a pastor to protect others.

That simple Facebook post that crisscrossed the globe made me a better dad in the end, but it also was the beginning of the end of my role as pastor in that congregation.

My newfound passion for the oppressed, for justice, and for Micah 6:8 mercy for the marginalized was too difficult for them to stomach.

It would be years before I would have another viral post or platform with any influence beyond a local congregation, but the commitment to be a prophetic voice of uncomfortable honesty was born during that warm week in June 2020.

I had spent too many years being silent and enabling an Evangelicalism that sought to silence dissenting voices.

On things that mattered to God—and now to me—I would speak up.

Even should I lose my pulpit, I had found my voice.

For such a time as this.

* * * * *

Don’t forget to head over to Dr. Young’s page. Join the conversations. Support his ministry. Invite others.

Until my song comes here

On June 3, 2022 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, Evangelical Covenant Church, faith, life together, sacramental living, Serve Globally, spiritual formation, The ChurchLeave a comment

Our Europe Team for Serve Globally, the mission organization we serve through our denomination (Evangelical Covenant Church), recently met for our annual retreat (two and a half year COVID delay notwithstanding) at Le Lazaret in Sète, France. For my wife and I, it was only our second such experience. Our first was in October, 2019 and acted as a kind of “reconnaissance mission” as we explored God’s call.

This beloved team is a collective of singular passion, unwavering commitment to justice and reconciliation, enviable humour, rich fellowship, boundless creativity, and endless capacity for joy. We would take a bullet for any one of them.

Our speaker and guide for the retreat was none other than Al Tizon, former Executive Minister for Serve Globally, missiologist, teacher, writer, prophet, and friend. His upcoming book, Christ Among the Classes, shaped our discussions.

By way of understatement, these were not easy conversations! We engaged in matters best left alone unless one wants to face the convicting issues of wealth, the Gospel to and among the poor, our complicity, knowing or unknowing, in perpetuating systems of greed and disenfranchisement and how all of that intersects with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It can be equally stirring and unnerving to discuss one’s place in a world given to championing the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor, while not demonizing the rich. What does that even look like? Is such socio-economic righteousness even an attainable goal? When does it cross the line from kingdom equality to political radicalism? Is there a difference? If so, what?

The questions arising from such discussions are as dizzyingly complex as are the issues from which they derive. But, it is our calling as followers of Jesus, himself a friend of the poor, and sinners, and children. We, by association, are to befriend the outcast, emancipate the leper du jours; even love our enemies. This includes those we are most quick to either dismiss or demonize.

Al (he’s not one for the fineries of title!) painted a picture of the transformation of heart toward equanimity by way of downward mobility, an increasing identification with the poor. This starts first with an awakening to our own relative privilege and wealth. To be “born again” is to see anew, or perhaps for the very first time, our place in the broader world; our individual and collective sin and how it has affected us and those around us.

We journeyed through a series of steps along the way toward the ultimate goal of befriending and advocating for the poor. The rich are not of the devil. Nor are they to be eschewed, pooh-pooh’d, or railroaded out of access to grace. But, Jesus makes clear that they will have a much more difficult time when it comes to the attitude of mind and heart necessary to befriend those who, by definition, require something from them, whether that is as benign as their time or as challenging as their resources.

I like to keep things simple. I take my cue from Wendell Berry who recognized the need for every song we compose to be fully accessible to all. If not, we still have work to do…

Christmas in Edinburgh

On December 24, 2021December 24, 2021 By robertalanrifeIn Beauty, Christian spirituality, Christianity, Evangelical Covenant Church, Family, life together, sacramental living, Serve Globally3 Comments

*Looking out from the Christmas Festival on Prince’s Street*

The air feels sharp. Like a paper cut on dry skin. The same air that is moderated by the sea is also saturated with it so that the wind denies however many layers one can throw at its defence.

It’s a good thing this city is so photogenic. She blushes with feigned humility at every turn, dipping her shirt to reveal her grey-stone breasts just enough to draw you to her. But, as you draw near, her manner reminds you that you’re a mere stone’s throw from the North Sea.

In early Winter.

*As seen from our window, snow comes wistfully to Comely Bank.*

Anyone who follows us on social media, or has been within camera or earshot of us in the past few weeks, is already aware that my wife and I live now in Edinburgh, Scotland. We haven’t stopped talking about it. You ever hang around new parents and they never quit talking about their newborn? Yeah, it’s kinda like that.

Everything is new. We have new UK phone numbers almost impossible to memorize (memorise). We are learning to write dates day/month/year. We’ve traded a five-number zip code for a postal code with two caps, a number, another number, and two more caps. We’re learning what it’s like to shop for days of food at a time rather than weeks. We’re learning the complexities of laundry in the UK, a process not unlike rebuilding a laptop.

Thanks to the relative compactness of Edinburgh streets, we’ve taken like pros to something we would never have done in North America, ride a bus. We walk everywhere else. Living in the relatively central district of Stockbridge I call this the “one-mile zone.” We can walk almost anywhere we need to be, including downtown (uptown as the locals call it).

The glaring lack of any formal Thanksgiving tradition here is regrettable in one way, given the many memorable observances we’ve enjoyed over the years with family, friends, and one unlucky turkey. But, it is also a wonderful thing not having to engage in the inevitable, often heated, debates about Christmas decorating starting “too early.” Despite its lack of liturgical credibility, “too early” for me would be mid-October, not American Thanksgiving which just happens to fall less than a month from Christmas.

Edinburgh loves her Christmas decorating. She does it well, with a voracious thoroughness that causes Mrs. Claus to blanche at the sight. Is it thoroughly secular? Yeah, pretty much. Is it beautiful and welcoming? Absolutely. Which, as you will recall from my earlier post on the Enneagram 4, is my love language.

Beauty is next to godliness.

*Edinburgh has lighting down to an art.*

I’ve often questioned artists who claim their particular geography to have the “best light” when they live where there’s nothing but an abundance of it, washing out all colour and nuance. When light is involved, “most” does not equal “best.” My soul prefers its light at a premium; where it changes much, leaves me alone for long periods of time, and is therefore, precious.

*Granton Harbour in morning light, shrewdly shrouded*

For me, Edinburgh in winter is that place.

A runner for many years, I confess that the best pathways for moving contemplation are these damp corridors of green-framed stone and shadow. It is something about subtleties where colours can pop because they’re not constantly blanched by direct sunlight. There’s an existential complexity to it utterly lacking in sun-drenched regions.

I have the opposite of seasonal affective disorder (S.A.D.) I’m depressed in constant sun. Nothing changes. It’s like trying to drink from a fire hydrant…all the time. It’s too much, too often, for no reason.

The breadth of human experience requires more than the cheap seats at a bad movie. It needs emotional distance, space to laugh and hurt and question and doubt and start all over again. The heart needs lament; needs thoughtfulness, discernment, the tepid wondering for which it is engineered. I agree with Pàdraig Ó Tuama’s review of Dunez Smith’s amazing poem, “I’m going back to Minnesota where sadness makes sense.” where he states, “not everyone needs to live in perpetual summer.”

Yes. That.

2021. This will be our first Christmas away from our boys. Either one or the other, or both, were always with us for the holidays. However, given the weight of God’s call upon us to love and serve Edinburgh, it seems not so high a price to pay, given the great returns we’ve already enjoyed from this incredible place. Besides, our laddies are squarely in God’s hands every bit as much as we, or anyone else.

So then, this year…it is Christmas in Edinburgh.

Building Our Poem

On September 13, 2021September 13, 2021 By robertalanrifeIn bagpipes, Beauty, celtic music, Christian spirituality, Christianity, Evangelical Covenant Church, faith, Family, life together, literature, music, poetry, sacramental living, Serve Globally, spiritual formation, Story, the arts, The Church1 Comment

“…in thy voice I catch

The language of my former heart…”*

I love poetry. I love its exactitude, its wide-eyed innocence wed to unflinching honesty. The unforced rhythms of perfection, like Grandma’s gaze over well-worn glasses. It is the art of lovers, the science of thinkers, the wisdom of doers.

Poetry gives up her secrets cautiously, altruistically, slowly. Every word, like every note of a great symphony, is fully intended, placed unequivocally in its place with an eye, and ear, to building something remarkable out of simple things, something well beyond the sum of its parts.

In a thousand ways, we are the amalgam of our carefully written words; each one added to the emerging poem of our lives. In this process, there are no real mistakes. There is only the discernment asked of us in the changing turn of phrase that will ultimately become our voice in the world.

For me, Rosebud was one such word. Perhaps an entire stanza.

Although my active period in Rosebud was limited to a few months in 1987, her existential tattoos continue to reveal themselves in enduring ways. A tiny, easily missed oasis in the Alberta prairie percolated in me an entire life thereafter committed to several things: the transformative realities birthed in the canyons of friendship, great things can come from wee places, the pursuit of art wed to faith, and the kind of community possible only through probing, and honest, creativity. Family, lived best in and through, story. Our stories now connect in ways both obvious and subtle.

On the About tab from my spiritual life blog reads the following statement of purpose: “my life is dedicated to those places where life, liturgy, theology, and the arts intersect to promote an authentic spirituality – who we are becoming.” These values existed in me long before I ever made it to this place. But they were stoked by shared inspiration, fireside laughter, broken stage lights and fumbled words, splinters and spoilers, relational fugue and fatigue, the prayers and tears of young lives navigating their way to maturity; to wholeness. To become both passionate and com-passionate, all writ large in the art of our story. The Story.

On the Rosebud Fellowship homepage can be found the following statement, one of the six “objects” that articulates its purpose: “To promote the fellowship of people whose lives have been affected by the Christian mission of Rosebud School of the Arts.”

Friends, I am one such person.

My daily Rosebud prayer walk, Canadian style.

In the short time I spent here I found lasting friendships, a deep gratitude for the quality of connections that exist around creativity rooted in spirituality, and a way of living, boldly illustrative of the kind of “Christian mission” to which Rosebud has always been committed, both spoken and unspoken.

However, the vision of this place was never one for kitsch or the quaintly derivative “evangelism through art” which has damaged both evangelism and art in so doing. Sadly, what begins as evangelism can become nothing more than jingoistic cheerleading or public relations. What begins as “art” descends to something diminished and pale, akin to cultural babysitting, the low hanging fruit of the accessible and “relevant” to the demise of beauty, the archetypal perfections to which God, wide-eyed, once whispered, “it is good.” When beauty and story are the goal, both art and God win. For me, this is Rosebud’s greatest victory.

To witness the leadership, serene but definitive, directive but collegial, of LaVerne Erickson has always been a wonder to me. A man of endless stories (and not a few impressive name-drops), tireless energy, and towering vision inspires me as much now as it did in those pre-Cambrian days of 1987. I’m still shedding the pounds added from Arlene’s unforgivably good cooking. More than a few good words (and some less so!) were knit to my story through the relentless humour of Royal Sproule, the passionate guidance of Doug Levitt, the sanguine wisdom of Lyle Penner, the many towering women of faith and creativity who helped put Rosebud on the map. And, of course, the big-heartedness of Akokniskway herself, calling us all deeper into her welcoming bosom.

I am as Canadian as the day is long, complete with an undying love of trains. I grew up in a blue-collar home, the son of a brewery worker and homemaker. Our 900 square foot bungalow in the quaint but rough-around-the-edges southwest Calgary neighbourhood was poised right next to tracks, now LRT, but once host to regular trains through town. So, when I moved into my room in the Rosebud Hotel, the nightly train arriving just past midnight was like a well-worn pair of jeans. Her whistle neither haunted nor annoyed. It sang to me of prairie goodness, rich in the Canadian story so much my own. Our own.

The poetry of my life is ongoing. Rosebud has faded well into my rearview mirror. But she has never stopped whispering to me of what could be, those places where my past collides with my present to hint at a future.

Rife crazies – Rae, Graeme (25), Calum (30), Me

Now, after decades of Christian ministry, a life dedicated to music, writing, poetry, spiritual formation, and the arts, two boys (both professional musicians), together with my wife Rae (Rosebud incubated our love!), we are planting new words in our emerging poem. This newest word takes us across the Atlantic to begin life and ministry in the UK. We invite as many as we can to join us on this journey. Our poetry improves with every letter added, every nuance of word, phrase, and metaphor.

All of you are all of that.

Rosebud, thank you for being a cradle, an incubator, a muse and sage, a friend. Your poetry is now, and will always be, my own. I take you with me, with us, into a new horizon. Our emerging poem.

Word for word, words for Word.

1987-Rae Kenny and I were married the following year.

Same people, almost 30 years later.
2016, Peterborough Cathedral, England

A poem

When muscle, bone, and sinew can’t find heart

and listening and looking. Then, severed in time

from the wishing well of wonder, we wander

through rushes and slivers of our moments, bent

over mirrored water, haunted.

There is a wrinkle in the hour’d fabric of

our days when tender grows the minstrel’s

song. It rings across golden fields of

shimmering wheat – milled hopes, rolled and real.

Bardic but breathless it sounds, reveling in tremors

of songs still sung to handmade candles.

They shine to our hopes, ablaze with just

a hint of what could be.

There is a certain moment, beholden to itself,

in which ghosts and gazes meet to discuss

their future. Still, birthed

from the ashes of forgottenness

an ember yet lurks, small but waiting, patient –

alert to any movement or sounds of humming.

Catch it if it sings.

©R. A. Rife, 2016

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

* Quoted from his famous work, Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798 by Wm. Wordsworth

Reemergence and the Risk of Community

On August 13, 2021 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, Evangelical Covenant Church, faith, life together, Operation UK 2020, sacramental living, Serve Globally, spiritual formation2 Comments

I stand corrected.

With my first foray into central Saskatchewan I witnessed a part of the Province at once unexpected and lush. I now retract all those youthfully snide comments I made as a boy every time I came to Saskatchewan and proclaimed it the flattest, most featureless place I’d ever seen.

Prince Albert in particular, where I had gone to preach at a sister church, was surprising. Understated and pastoral, she offered herself to me in all her “boreal transition forest” splendour. A landscape not terribly unlike the north of England quietly strut her stuff and I was impressed.

Saskatchewan, I apologize. I was a kid; ignorant, wrong. You are gorgeous. As were the good folks of Gateway Covenant Church with whom I shared and among whom I lived for a couple days. What follows is the edited version of my sermon with some music from our service on Sunday, August 8th, 2021.

Don’t make the mistake I made when I was growing up and decide something is the sum total of one’s limited experience. Wait. It just might surprise you!

I continue to be amazed at the generosity of friends and total strangers alike as they sign on as partners for our upcoming ministry to the UK with Serve Globally of the Evangelical Covenant Church. See below how you can do so, too.

For our American friends.

For our Canadian friends.

Grace and peace to you all!

Quaranthings 2: Pandemia, Paragraphs, Potential, Prayers & Plans

On May 25, 2021 By robertalanrifeIn Christianity, Evangelical Covenant Church, faith, life together, sacramental living, Serve Globally, spiritual formation, The ChurchLeave a comment

Alliterations are overly cute. Easy, usable, memorable, but let’s face it, they are the wheelhouse of preachers, presenters, and Presidents everywhere.

Damn, I did it again!

Acronyms (Any Collection Randomly Ordering Numerous Yammering Multiple Syllables) are their crazy uncle. I cannot promise they won’t show up any more. But this should give you an idea of what can happen when writers have too much time on their hands and are still convinced they have interesting things to say.

With that as prelude, I give you: Quaranthings 2.

Pandemia

Strange and wonderful things happen when we step away, willingly or otherwise, from the standard practices of our overheated lives. At the beginning of this pandemic (yes, it is still stubbornly hanging around) we had as much curiosity as we did anxiety about how this thing would play out. We did what normal adults do. We hoarded all the Pringles and toilet paper we could carry. Ironic, as it seems to me the two are related. Governments did what governments do: absolutely nothing, or too much of everything, and we citizens rose to the challenge of challenging everything we could at every turn.

To some, the ‘rona’ is just one big, global sniffle and all the dead folks just complained too much. To others, it was a sign of the apocalypse brought on by Reagan or Trump or corporate America. To everyone, it was the forced resignation that business as usual would not be business as usual, whatever that would ultimately mean.

Well, I do not pretend to pontificate us into any semblance of meaning here. Nor can I offer much by way of socio-cultural answers. All I can do is repeatedly express my sadness at what many have lost, my humble gratitude that we have somehow missed those losses personally, and my intention to assist others where I can to overcome their own pain and discouragement in this chaotic time.

What I can say with confidence is that this pandemic has forced two things from me: self-examination and a more outward focus by way of the same. To do such an examination carefully and honestly reveals a late-middle aged, well-educated, white, Protestant male. I have all the “right” qualifications to weather most storms because those cultural credentials are writ large everywhere I go. I’m “in” and likely do not face the same baffling set of crises faced by many of my contemporaries unfortunate enough to possess “different” credentials.

Part of the way in which I seek to stay grateful but focused on those outside myself comprises the remainder of this post.

Paragraphs

I’ve been processing pandemic paranoia produced by piling on peril through the product of public pontification (I told ya it might show up again). Every writer says, more or less, the same thing about writing – we write to squeeze outside what’s percolating inside. The invisible made visible. The process of creating product from thought.

The opposite can also be true. We write, an outside-in directive, in order to mine whatever might be hiding down there. It’s a behavioural tonic perfectly suited to help get us out of our heads and onto our pages. I’d say this is especially so for me as I can live quite comfortably in my head. If you don’t believe me, even a quick look inside would reveal some greasy, overweight dude in slippers and bathrobe eating Cheetos on the couch.

I’m a prime candidate for the discipline of writing. This quarantine is providing plenty opportunity to unlock some mental chains and grease up the wheels of emerging thoughts-to-words. And, I pray that some of them find safe quarantine in you where they can make themselves at home and snuggle into places of needed hope or encouragement.

Potential

There is no shortage of toxic positivity out there. Our culture is lost in a let’s-not-actually-change-anything-thoughts-and-prayers feedback loop. The Hallmark answer to real problems faced by real people in the real world is the engineered faux empathy of thoughts and prayers wed to Thomas Kinkade. It’s better than nothing (maybe) but no substitute for the tangibility of hope forged in the potential of change.

Because my wife and I have suffered relatively little compared to many during our pandemia, I try to avoid too many overly-sunny, Pollyanna-isms which do little more than show people that I’m a friendly old man, harmless, but useless.

There’s a tricky tightrope somewhere between the verbal encouragement we all need: “Anxiety weighs down the human heart, but a good word cheers it up” (Prov. 12:25), and the risk of genuine advocacy: “Speak out for those who cannot speak; for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Prov. 31:8-9). The former can offer momentary, short-term respite while the latter offers possibility: the potential for things to be different, better.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer…

Prayers

I’ve written a lot about prayer. What I think prayer to be, or at least ways I’ve sought to engage the mystery of prayer. It is the high art of Renaissance Humanists when I read or say the prayers of the masters. It is the profoundly approachable speech of the street and kitchen when I hear it in most churches. It is both when I hear Jesus do it.

All of it is good. Necessary. In my pursuit of prayer I make use of all of the above and more besides. Early in the pandemic I wasted a lot of time puttering around my life while waiting with the rest of us to see how this thing was gonna play out. Forced retreat feels more like a prison than a spare time playground and, I confess, I frittered away months of glorious time, a gift for which we’re forever pursuing more.

It’s not difficult to imagine that the Bible greats, many of whom found themselves in the forced quarantine of chains, likely did similarly. After a few weeks of yelling at Pharoah and negotiating with the prison guards to no avail, Joseph likely got down to the business of acquiescence to his fate, praying for personal peace and strength. Then, after enough time elapses he begins to pray for the well-being of those he could no longer see. His own cultural kin, the Israelites, had no end of prayer opportunities. 400 years of slavery oughta do it. Then, because the deepest lessons always need the most reiteration, another forty-year forced march through the desert afforded them options for practice (generally by way of complaint).

We learn prayer best like we learn everything else: through the desperation of suffering and need coupled with the growing heart of gratitude. Help and thanks, all of which lead to the inexorable awe of the humble follower. Many have expanded on this idea far better than I ever could, Anne Lamott for one. I’ll say nothing further here other than to add: me too. ‘Help’ is my prayer most days. Help me God for this or that thing, regardless of hidden machinations, motivations or outcomes. Generally speaking, ‘thanks’ follows shortly thereafter followed by the peace of contemplation, which is the spiritual equivalent of undoing the top button after a huge meal. The soul’s sigh of relief in the presence of her God.

Plans

All of that to say this: we’ve been especially busy this past year or two as we begin the launch sequence for our call to ministry in the UK. Pandemic-be-damned, it has slowed things down, but has not stifled our desire, lessened our energy, or muffled God’s voice. It remains for us the one thing to which we are daily committed.

I love everything about this plan. Except for the fundraising part. It never feels authentic to me and possesses a certain desperation of its own. That said, it’s a necessary function for global personnel. I’ll quietly and calmly, but confidently, affix our donor link here, walk away, whispering one of those prayers I’d mentioned above and conclude with this blessing to you, my dear readers:

Beannacht

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets into you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue,
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

John O’Donohue, 2010

A Coddiwomple Continues

On May 12, 2021 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, Evangelical Covenant Church, faith, Family, life together, liturgy, music, Operation UK 2020, Serve Globally, spiritual formation, worship1 Comment

It’s been awhile since we’ve been here together. For that I apologize. The biggest part of a blogger’s life is unassailable responsibility to the community gathered around him or her. It means staying in touch regardless of how chaotic, or not, one’s life becomes. Because, after all, into every life some chaos must come, right?

However, in a sense I do not apologize. Not in the strictest sense. Instead, I see the ellipsis between this entry and the last as indicative of time for preparation, for transformation, for contemplation; even, for rest. These have been days of conquest, rising to claim what God keeps tossing into my garden. These have been days of trust, quietly waiting upon God who promises that, doing so will bring rewards well beyond the waiting. Most of all, they have been days of joy. Holy joy borne of resting in cosmic realities of Presence and process.

Rae and I continue our journey toward life and ministry in the U.K. We wrap up our brief sojourn at a basement suite provided by good friends as we drive to Spokane on Sunday. To Canada on Monday where we quarantine for fourteen days (and hopefully still like each other afterwards!). We visit my family, many friends and say goodbyes. Then, Rae flies to London on June 30th where she begins the unwelcome task of finding a suitable job.

At 57 years old.

During a pandemic.

With no other income!

As for me, I continue pursuing ministry partnerships and financial supporters.

As an artist not a fundraiser.

During a pandemic.

With no other income!

We are not daunted however having come to believe this to be God’s call for us. We thank you, dear readers, for your interest in our journey. We thank those of you who have chosen to partner with us financially (link below). Most of all, we thank you for being our friends and simply walking alongside us.

Enjoy this song performed by a group of us a year ago. It’s a song I wrote meant as a formal charge to the congregation to “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.” It is our theme song as we push into this, our coddiwomple of soul.

Peace, dear ones.

If you can, join our ministry family as a sustaining partner here.

Sacred Spaces (Volume 2)

On February 21, 2021 By robertalanrifeIn celtic spirituality, Christian spirituality, Evangelical Covenant Church, faith, Lenten Guest Blog Series, life together, sacramental living, Serve Globally, spiritual formationLeave a comment

What follows is an excerpt from a piece that was part of a Lenten blog series I hosted a few years ago on how to introduce the mysteries and beauty of Christian spirituality to everyone, even “the least of these?” How do we make these principles reachable for everyone?

Eyes in the Alley: God’s Beauty for Our Ashes
She fumbled through her purse for her phone. Its unnecessarily loud ring matched the other bells and whistles blasting in her head. They were the kind that told her old lies, played old tapes.

Lipstick, business cards, flash cards for her Spanish class, gloves, make-up mirror…where the hell is that damn thing? she cursed. Out loud apparently. The pastor, full-robed, full-throated, and in full-sermon, rebuked her with a glare. She’d seen it before. Often. It would have been less humiliating to slap her.

She was flustered and wound up tight as a bedspring. And, she was frustrated at her own lack of discernment. Why the hell didn’t I turn this thing off? Who’d be calling now? It’s Sunday, they shouldn’t even be open today she thought, half angry, half relieved. After dropping almost everything, she fingered the noisy culprit. Sliding sideways past her pew neighbors, she answered just in time to catch the call she wished she hadn’t. “Your test results are in, ma’am. Can you meet with the doctor tomorrow?”

Ashes.

He fell backwards against the brick wall, his guts, freshly emptied of the remains of fish-dinner-a-la-dumpster. His head, swimming in too much cheap wine, conspired with his stomach against all lucidity and balance, let alone self-respect. He smelled of piss, puke and pain. These days, only shame kept him alive and the dull remembrance of a life once lived, once alive with the common promise of…well, promise.

Was it only yesterday that he’d felt the warm body of a wife sleeping next to him? She had stayed with him through the final merger, the one he’d promised would bring them financial freedom. She muscled through his two affairs and the drinking that bridged them both. Now, two years, a foreclosure, divorce, and bankruptcy later, he thought he smelled her hair, the fragrance of mint intermingled in aching reminiscence. But it was only the smell of loss mixed with dog shit on his one remaining shoe. He’d lost the other earlier that day foraging for what was left of his meal, now part of his concrete pillow. And, as it began to snow, he blacked out.

Ashes.

She was desperate. It had been too long between hits and her most regular but equally violent trick had just buzzed to be let in. She frantically ravaged through her regular places searching for her small bag of white, powdered courage. If she could get high enough quick enough, perhaps he would get enough soon enough and leave her just enough to start the whole process again.

He pounded on the buzzer. Now, he wasn’t just horny but pissed off and, most likely, more violent as a result. Her lust to forget competed with his to be remembered and a battle ensued as to whose needs would be met first. She gave up. This time, a paying customer in person overruled her quest to be absent. After safely shoeing her daughter away in a back room, yelling for her to lock the door, with quivering hand she buzzed him in.

He stormed and swore his way up the four flights of stairs. It was a distance not her friend when it came to her chances of getting through this unscathed. Her door flew open, along with his zipper and a stream of obscenities. Everything aligned in a perfect storm, conspiring against her and sealing her fate. She lucked out this time and suffered only one punch before he got down to business. Through a left eye, now starting to swell, she toughed it out through one more indignity.

Ashes.

Ash Wednesday. Ashes indicate something. They tell us something has been used up, finished. There is nothing left. Any fuel that had provided light or heat no longer exists. It is rendered useless. Ashes are basically meaningless and, at one level, can provide a bleak picture of what many of us feel about our lives. Sometimes, life offers little more than the used up fodder of someone else’s fire.

In the Gospel however ashes become something more than foul smelling carbon. Jesus reveals to us how the ashes of death are turned to the fertilizer of new life. In his name, we trade our ashes for God’s beauty. Death and dying for life and living.

An anxiety-ridden woman receives the call; a washed-up businessman is now one with the streets; a hooker walks a tightrope of addiction and fear to survive the only lifestyle she knows.

All of us are only a hair’s breadth away from ruin or reward, disaster or dream, life or lies. We’re in this together. And wherever our lives may be in ruins, God can bring about beauty from our ashes.

May it be so.

(R. A. Rife. Lent, 2014)

Rev’d ‘n Ready!

On February 12, 2021 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, Evangelical Covenant Church, faith, life together, Serve Globally, The ChurchLeave a comment

The nature of this blog has been primarily to share matters of spirituality, the shared concerns of our common journey in and toward the Divine. I make no apology for this emphasis. It impacts us all. Equally.

Everyone of us is on a journey of one kind or another. Some feel stuck in unhealthy feedback loops, the shrill noise of everything threatening their peace daily. Others may be in a fog of doubt or uncertainty or cynicism. Still others feel like a young puppies, wagging happy tails, ears perched to hear all the new joys a day will bring forth.

In recent years, my journey has brought me out of a long, dark hallway of faith deconstruction, a general cynicism about most things, and a cottage industry in unrequited longing into more broad and spacious lands. This is how it goes with most lives. Light is only light when understood against darkness. And shadows, for all their nuanced grey, make things interesting. We learn best this way.

Or, so it would seem.

Again, no apologies. Just an honest assessment of my lay of the land, spiritually speaking. “I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

I suppose I mention this here because, contrary to what I might normally post here for you dear folks, what follows will feel more…conventional. A step into the great pastoral P.R. as it were!

This is gleaned from our most recent Mailchimp newsletter. We send it about once a month and it outlines where we’re at in our pursuit of ministry in the UK. I hope you don’t mind. Better still, I pray you find here something of benefit to your souls, despite this bald advertisement of new things on our horizon.

Come, walk with us, will you?

*We’re participating in the upcoming Serve Globally Europe team retreat, Washington State edition, in mid-April.

*Rae honed her resumé and has begun sending them out. At our age, that’s always a faith venture! I will develop my ministry from wherever Rae finds work – most likely somewhere near London or Edinburgh.

*Given the state of affairs globally with the pandemic, we’ve decided to stay put until after we’re vaccinated. Then, we’ll head to Canada for a few weeks to visit family and friends and continue raising prayer/financial support.

Rae and I share a heart for the disenfranchised, especially millennials, and we’re passionate about sharing Jesus in non-conventional, contextual ways. My goal is to weave together contemporary liturgies, the arts, and spiritual formation in developing creative ways to reach agnostics, “exvangelicals,” the de-churched, and the un-churched.

Our current donor initiative is “Project 21 – Coffee Money Gospel.” We invite you to become a sustaining member of our community by contributing only $21 (or more) per month. Three dollars, seven times a month (or the opposite if you’re given to more uptown drinks) – coffee money!

For all of those who have joined our community as partners in ministry, thank you! But, we still have a long way to go before we can get to the mission field. With enough of you joining us, we’ll be there in no time. Then, we’ll share a coffee in your honour!

We invite you sign up for our newsletter. Email me anytime at robert.rife@covchurch.org. For details on how to give, see our page on the ECC website.

We love you all. We are ever grateful for your friendship, support, and laughs. Come and join us to be part of what God is doing in post-Christian Britain.

Rob and Rae

Sacred Spaces (vol. 1)

On November 28, 2020November 28, 2020 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, Evangelical Covenant Church, faith, Family, life together, Operation UK 2020, sacramental living, Serve GloballyLeave a comment

I have shared here on numerous occasions my intention to follow the Spirit’s voice across the pond where we will serve with Serve Globally somewhere in Britain. This call has percolated in my wife and I for many years and we are finally ready to pour whatever heady liquid is forthcoming into frothy mugs of Gospel peace for all who need it.

A big part of that process is…gulp…fundraising. An unsexy word if ever there was one. But, alas, despite whatever stigma is attached thereto, I muscle through it to enjoin all within earshot to join us in this venture. Follow along as an interested witness to what God is doing. Follow us by way of joining our prayer community. Or, follow us by joining our finance community.

What I post here is a new offering, not just for our Serve Globally family, but for this blog as well. Along with our regular semi-monthly newsletter, I have added “Sacred Spaces,” (I apologize for the exterior link! It keeps things tidier) a page uniquely dedicated to encouraging hope and nourishing the spiritual imagination.

My regular readers will recognize much of the material. It comes from here! But it is placed into a readable Mailchimp design for easy email distribution.

You are my precious blog family, equally dedicated to the mysteries of the spiritual journey. And, of all people, I want to invite you deeper into this adventure, this coddiwomple, with us.

I love you all. Come, let us journey together…