When a song knows you

On September 27, 2012December 22, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Music and the arts, Words...always words3 Comments

On that rare occasion when comes a song that catches in your throat and your moistened eyes lift; your heart swells and your tongue cleaves in silence to the roof of your dry, gaping mouth, one can only listen…

Music has wafted its way through the corridors of this boy’s life without either asking permission or signing a release form. At any given moment a particular song or sonata or ambient guitar piece has bored a hole into the otherwise forbidden regions of my soul where God doesn’t even like to go. And it stays. It stays and plays, disturbing the water leaving manuscripted ripples of memories repressed or forgotten, faces attached to long lost friends, pieces of time squandered and scattered on the floor.

I don’t mean to sound sullen for music has also drawn, even driven me, by the Spirit into all manner of delightful wilderness as well. It leaves its mark gently, but insistently, borrowing from what it knows will always push my heart into the deep end where my affections direct my thoughts and together, meet my will.

And I am changed.

It does seem a little more than mere serendipity when just the right lyric encased in the perfect package of notes, irrepressibly good and right, finds its way to my hungry ears. There is that moment of instant recognition. Someone knows this, has felt this before me and I am not alone. At these times a kinship is unveiled. Someone is already walking with me along pathways I had thought previously untraveled, and soothes me in the knowledge that they’re only unknown to me. Others have traversed these waters, even successfully, and been found by God, waiting on the other side; the same God you may have inwardly chided for his conspicuous absence, barely perceivable as you stumbled and groped along.

I remember the first time I ever heard Bridge Over Troubled Water. It occurred to me how duped I had been into believing I had already heard the best song ever, which at the time might have been the Thomas, the Tank Engine theme song. I was seven years old and nothing would ever be the same. I begged my parents to purchase the album (now extinct flat, black disc-like things with countless grooves magically holding music).

The next similarly visceral encounter was my discovery of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring by…well, I had no idea then. Cliché as it might be among the classical music elite, no one can deny, in good conscience, the genius and mystical profundity of the piece. To this day it shatters me every time I hear it.

I was captured again when, on a drive from Calgary to Cranbrook, B.C., I encountered Bach’s Wedding Cantata and the opening Kyrie of Schubert’s Mass in Ab for the first time. To say I was captivated would be an understatement of hyperbolic proportions. I had to pull the car over, so spellbound was I at the unforgivably beautiful refrains. My love affair with this music continues unabated.

You may think it trite by comparison but, lately, my descent into a blubbering, snotty mess has been evoked by a simple little song, We Were Better Off, by Elenowen, a barely known duo. It has taken its place among those selections added to Rob’s warning,-this-one-guarantees-tears-so-avoid-public-places playlist. Go ahead, listen and tell me what you think. I dare you to do so without at least a hint of connection. If you feel nothing at all, you’re either at the pre-coffee stage of your day, a grumpy pragmatist, or a zombie (no pressure).

Music, like the people with whom we share it, comes at the most unexpected times. And, when it does, my self-imposed melancholy is banished if only for a moment as the notes probe places left unexplored and I am placed under God’s laser-specific microscope. Now that’s theology. If I were to say at those times that I now knew this song, it is then God reminds me that, in fact, it is the song that knows me.

Da signe al fine.

Sonnet from an airport lounge

On September 24, 2012September 24, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing Poetic, Words...always wordsLeave a comment

This is not autobiographical. I repeat, this is not…oh never mind, you decide. As a recovering alcoholic with almost 10 years sober (no, stop, please…enough), this is an all too familiar scene. Trying to wash away fear, doubt and pain while dulling the insistent voice of comfort offered us by God and stranger. Hurting together is still better than drinking alone, n’est pas?

Sitting in the airport lounge with spirit bayoneted,

half-hearted conversations, words, more words, tumble out, un-netted.

Ne’er-do-wells sing trashy songs, their voices loud, un-vetted,

scare away all vestiges of peace, un-still…

* * * * *

Seeking solace, groping hope from speaker’d plane route changes,

arrivals swapped as airplanes, circling round, my vision ranges.

Slow, so slow and slower still the time, these hours, outrageous

offer little respite from these voices, shrill.

* * * * *

But in the lateness of this hour, e’en now there comes a voice,

some gentle, waltzing words of comfort land, offering a choice

to listen hard, to find, to seek and fin’lly heed this noise,

since Whiskey Sours failed their task, this heart to fill.

* * * * *

So much to lose, through burden’d care;

so much to gain when life we share.

Glimpses VII: the blessing of obscurity

On September 23, 2012September 23, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, faith, music, sacramental living, spiritual formation, the arts12 Comments

I’m a musician. A fairly good one I suppose, if I believe my own press. I’ve had at least nominal success at performing, writing, recording, arranging…the gamut really. It feels good whenever someone notices my ability. Really good. I have learned how to revel in a good compliment without either sidestepping it to the embarrassment of the one offering it or, by contrast, basking in it to the chagrin of those who then have to live with me.

I am (or so I’m led to believe) an Enneagram FOUR. The Individualist. Fours, when describing ourselves, are compelled to do so with more articulation, wit, sophistication and joie de vivre than the last FOUR who just described herself. We have to make a splash, an entrance of swishing haberdashery, groove, and devil may care cool that at once attracts attention but with just a hint of nonchalance to avoid inauthenticity or scorn. That way, we get both the notice of the entrance and the respect in spite of it. I call it the spirituality of swagger. It is the spiritual equivalent of the hip, there-to-be-seen, Starbucks cultural attaché. And it is temptingly indispensable for we artsy types.

Professional music ministry has figured into my journey for a number of years now. And, despite frequent boatloads of stress, they have been a gift beyond all telling. They have not, however, been the shiny, mist-around-the-edges trip to bountiful I’d hoped they might be. Probably for the best since, to know the truth ahead of time would pretty much empty the ministry of other foolish mortals such as I.

Since I’m waxing personal here, I am forced to admit that, rooted deep in much of my early ministry, was ambition pure and simple; a lust for high profile face time (places everyone, jazz hands, show me some sizzle). Of course, I would choose other language to describe it (I’m humbled to use my gifts in praise to God, and yes, I’ll sign that CD). The paid ministry gig would often pose as a front for whatever ambitious projects I was hungrily involved in that might otherwise guarantee even greater notice. In retrospect, ministry, at times, laundered my budding recording-performing career. That’s not to say that I was some kind of narcissistic monster. I performed the tasks of my call to the best of my ability and with as much love to which I was then privy.

While I was busily involving myself in as many satisfying ‘yeses’ as I could, God was pulling back the covers from my spirit, hitherto hidden and insufficiently tended. I was exploring my talent for music, creating, writing and leading alongside of God, insistently laying bare the deep wounds of my soul, a process yet ongoing.

The last few years have been (not entirely unwanted) a descent into obscurity, deconstruction, geographical isolation, and, to quote Henri Nouwen, “downward mobility”…and a boat-load of healing.

This has meant many things; concessions of a sort to the broader context of God’s work on my interior life. For example, I love overcast skies, rain, damp, shiny streets on dark mornings when, jogging, I can see my breath and smell the biosphere.

We live in the desert.

I love to gig and have done so for decades. Yakima has a tiny, struggling Indie music scene barely within anyone’s peripheral vision. I love all things eclectica; the strange, the eccentric, the anything wannabes and the rigorous interplay of opposing cosmo-political entities. We dwell in a town with few international restaurants of note and a rather simple demographic of whites and Hispanics.

I love the jaunty tête-à-tête so readily available in more left-bank Bohemian locales. I live and move among honest, hard-working, conservative, salt-of-the-earth types who could care less about my recent forays into metaphysical ontology, apophatic theology or Dostoevsky (apparently, I’m a socialist, a moniker I only half-heartedly deny). They have served me and my family tirelessly, supporting me in spite of my innumerable eccentricities. That is better than all the fame one can own.

(A few precious friends)>

That which has postured as my life – panting, and out of breath – is slowly giving way to the more subtle, softly glowing embers of God’s gentle fire. I cannot in good conscience suggest that I no longer strive after validation or acclaim. Any shreds of real confidence, lasting relationships and consistency in my life have been attained through profound pain, multiple failures, (I add for emphasis: multiple) and forgottenness. These have been God’s preferred tools in adding leaven to the dough of my expanding soul.

Ambition and notoriety are deadly to the spiritual life. Exaltation is never to be our goal. Jesus promised it only through the more difficult way of humility, a path better defined by wood and nails than monitors and stage make-up. The restfulness and routine of life in obscurity I have embraced these days, gratefully. Nowadays, I’m plenty happy reading, writing or composing in my living room chair than I am anywhere more grandiose. For from here, I can hear…sacred whispers, most of which make no sense to me, but which shadow me everywhere and, rather strangely, guide me. I can honestly say that, this blessing of smallness has revealed the face of God and it is horrifying in its beauty.

Now, I must excuse myself. I need to check my blog stats…; – ]

Still time for Fall

On September 22, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing Poetic5 Comments

The days and nights they tumble on,

one day’s toes on tomorrow’s heels.

She grunts and forces her way upon

those who see time as cogs and wheels.

***

The endless hours push and shove

and jostle in hooded robe and shoes,

that heedless plod till more’s not enough

to hinder pathways trapped in ooze.

***

To catch the minutes wand’ring past,

their wings so sprightly fluttering by

’tis hopeless hope this die we cast

to tame this time, though hard we try.

***

Then stillness in this world should we

be after, solitude, tranquility.

God won’t rush, transforming, He,

our hearts from panic to civility.

***

So, let these moments taken now

to pause, reflect, encounter all

be God’s release of furrowed brow,

and stop…to smell the Fall.

Thanks to Lois Keffer for the awesome photo from her own Photoshop collection.

Still, in One Peace

On September 19, 2012September 19, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing Poetic2 Comments

Still, in One Peace

Fitting is it not that matters mounting,

with mystifying weight, find smaller place

and quieter voice beside waters of one’s heart, stilled?

***

Edges blunt as catalysts osmose, and color replaces frightened

monochromatic moods, all oozing

together in the panacea of grace.

***

I catch my breath long enough to taste air,

long forgotten and let the taste of quiet

fill my longing lungs with life, raw and real.

***

Here, there are no answers,

only better questions; hints of high above

where life grows smaller but clear, unified.

***

Lastly, I stretch legs, weary from

longer strides than meant for.

Here I am, still, in one peace.

Look now, the hidden road

On September 18, 2012September 15, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Words...always words5 Comments

Look now, the hidden road denies these footsteps

their certainty, unsure though they wend,

through what little solid soil succumbs

to plodding, silent shoe-footfall.

Forward slowly, halting back apace,

how often my wayward way, the Way, ‘tis not.

These choking vines abort momentum,

spilling out on soft and silent stones

their devious designs along this rutted path.

A fog, a mist, a nightling now,

I deign to trust what lying eyes will tell,

list’ning instead for the rustling wind

some branch to bow and bend and brush my face

and share with me geography.

Unsteady though the way must be

my hands atremble reach for other hands

for, only then, does lostness find its way.

Finding my way with words…again

On September 15, 2012September 15, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Words...always words8 Comments

As I say ad nauseam, words hold great fascination for me. Like a good wine or succulent steak, they should roll in the mouth teasing us out of lethargy and into fantasy. I’ve built entire paragraphs around a single tantalizing word I’ve discovered. I mean, come on, how can a person not get goosebumps upon hearing words like pandiculation, sententious; contumelious or jejune (thank you, Frasier). Since I am a word geek, but an amateur, I must speak without perspicuity (see, isn’t it fun?!) about a number of linguistic ailments troubling me of late.

The first is the unforgiving forward march of colloquialism for its own sake. The fullness and potential of our language is forced to pose as a mere undercurrent while our worst, or at least, carelessly casual renditions of it suffers from a “never cry wolf” scenario. It calls out, taunting us with its beauty and yummy goodness only to tease us upon reaching it with the text-speak it has become. Our etymologies, left underused, are trumped by the language of our street level encounters with one another. The onerous ubiquity of pop-speak, text-splutter all too easily bullies us with a kind of syntactical imperialism, usually from whoever holds the what’s-cool-now cards. Those of us self-appointed word cops run to the rescue of a drowning language only to discover that we had acted preemptively and the malady escapes. Like pushing a parachute underwater, it simply pops up elsewhere. When it happens again and again, we grow weary of the chase and join ‘em since we can’t beat ‘em.

Truth be told, this is how all language evolves. Perhaps this is not such a bad thing or we might still be in the throes of “straightway”, “contrariwise”, “forsooth”, “forthwith” and a host of other culturally high-nosed non-necessities. Lest I begin to sound too much like the aforementioned language-Luddites, I’m the first to admit my own occasional lapses into Facebook-ese if for no other reason than to escape the notice of those who might otherwise call me out on it.

Secondly, something I’ve said a jillion times – that abuse of overstatement otherwise known as hyperbole. Saying a word or phrase a jillion times does not, in itself, lend any greater credence to the word or phrase in question. Insistent hyperbole has left our language flat, uninteresting, boring and impotent, unable to even arouse us from our phonic slumber. I confess that my own struggle with the issue can easily be compared to the epic battles faced by Moses at the foot of Mt. Sinai or Lawrence of Arabia (this is exaggeration, not hyperbole…honest). The loss of subtlety, clarity and nuance delivers a word-life that is monochromatic, thin, even morose as a consequence.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, (my posts are generally far too long) is our love for the more-is-better preference. Our love for more-chat-is-better, not in length, depth and style, but in frequent, drably trite verbal diarrhea (think Twitter) has left us yearning for silence, the spaces between the words where we regain our footsteps. It’s often the punctuation and not the words it contextualizes that can steady our gait, allowing us to reenter conversation and community with class, poise and aplomb. The constant barrage of words, ideas and images (kinda like this post) all but guarantee that we are robbed of silence, the very silence that could enliven our spirits and enrich our conversation, leading to community.

So, there you have it. These are my ongoing struggles both for and agin’ the forward march of language evolution. As you can plainly see, I’ve been the victim more than once of a sound playground pummeling. After all, who wants their words of simple communication continuously berated as sub-standard? Especially by some smug, self-appointed word doctor? Be that as it may, I stand by my diagnoses and humbly await the next unwelcome conflagration unwittingly brought upon myself whereby the shape and color of my face are akin to the same in our less than ideal lexical enrollment.

In case we do not speak again, farewell, and think thee not ill of me…

guest blog – thinking about dad: 666

On September 13, 2012September 12, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Words...always wordsLeave a comment

This is the second post by guest blogger, Dan Erickson (www.danerickson.net).

thinking about dad: 666

(Originally posted on June 6, 2012)

It’s been two years to the day since my dad died. On June 6 at about 6pm of 2010 my dad made the transition from this life to the next. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony. He died on the sixth month, on the sixth day, at six o’clock: 666. That’s exactly what dad would have done, too. He would have laughed.

My father, Onnie Victor Erickson, affectionately known as Bud, was one of the kindest people I ever knew. He was non-judgmental and forgiving. When things were stolen from him he’d say, “It’s alright. I can always get another one. They need it more than me.” He said this knowing he couldn’t replace the item because he had very little money. When people would judge my dad based on his unique set of spiritual beliefs he’d simply say, “That’s okay. It’s part of their experience. That’s where they are in their life. I understand, because I’ve been there, too.”

Dad was also a seeker. It was his relentless desire to know more about God that got our family into a cult in the early 1970s. He thought he’d found the right path, the right group. Although he’d later leave that group, I’m not sure he’d claim it had been a mistake to get involved in it in the first place. His attitude was that everything we do and experience is destined. He’d say that we went through the cult experience because we were meant to at that time. He’d claim that coming through that experience helped us to learn something about God and would take us to the next level of our spiritual walk.

Dad later joined another fringe group and stayed with it until a few years before he died. Coming from the ministry himself, one thing may dad’s choice of spiritual leaders always included was a Christian-based belief system. He always believed that God and Christ were at the center of each group he attended, just not exactly as tradition might claim.

In the last few years of his life, dad forsook larger groups for studying a large variety of spiritual-based literature in smaller groups, small circles of likeminded people. In the end, I believe my dad had tapped into some ultimate truths concerning Christianity. He believed that the seed of Christ is in every soul that has ever lived, is living, or ever will live on earth. He called it “The Christ within you,” and he always did his best to live up to that phrase. He was honest, peaceful, loving, and fair. He was always there when a brother or sister, or a son or daughter needed a helping hand. We spent hours sharing our thoughts and feelings about God, Christ, and the state of the world. Dad was an optimist. He believed everything would work out for the good of God and all humanity in the end.

I started writing my first book A Train Called Forgiveness about ten months after dad died. Many of his ideals and values about God, Christ and religion are weaved into that story. It’s something I hope would have made him proud. Dad would have turned 75 on June 14, 2010. He was eight days shy, but now lives on infinitely. So, dad died on 666. But he’d say, “It doesn’t mean a thing. People are superstitious. God’s not superstitious. God is a beautiful representation of love.” God is a lot like “dad.”