Glimpses, part I: awakening to the indescribable

On July 9, 2012September 1, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn celtic spirituality, Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, spiritual formation2 Comments

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. I do not have anything close to adequate categories or temporal understanding for such things. In seeking them out, I must simply share and hope for the best.

I will be doing so in a short series of posts under the general heading, “Glimpses.” A little unoriginal I admit. However, I trust that my faltering attempts at self-revelation will prompt your own journeys of inner discovery and that, together, we may find God’s deep reservoir of grace.

At the foundation of Christian spirituality (and others) is the very basic principle of awakening or awareness. It comes in many different packages, under numerous ideologies, representative of a host of approaches, all 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 from God upon our shoulder before any meaningful process of receptivity and relationship can occur. In order for us to embrace this work, basically to ‘awake to our awakening’, we must intuit God’s whisper, 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 for 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 awaken to beauty and begin to see that for which we have always yearned but of which we were unaware; blind. This, however, can often be a fearful and groggy experience. Cobwebs 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 indefinable, 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. For me, it was often some old, stone 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 she 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. Enormous frozen flakes dove in random, disciplined lines, dancing past the streetlight that stood outside our home. The glistening goodness provided a panacea against which the world was complete and all was one, if only for a time. In those moments, gilded and encased in childhood wonder, I became curiously aware of a haunting peace that arrested my sensibilities and held me spellbound in what I can only describe as ‘rightness.’ The cosmos and I were one. God, as I now understand God, was lying 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.

This is a story best left unfinished…

This week, consider quietly and prayerfully, the ways in which you may have heard these awakening whispers of God.

Journal them. How did they occur? Under what circumstances? What, if anything, changed in you as a result?

What are ways you may be invited by God to enter even more deeply into these places of awakening and transformation? Agree, humbly and with resolve, to enter into them with the God of grace to guide you.

Feel free to share what you and God have been up to in your journey together.

Triangle Poems VI

On July 3, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

Knowing

Seldom have I felt this low,

my voice, still stuck inside.

A soul, left alone,

reveals its need

to suffer,

rejoice;

be.

Old for New

Let’s trade our foreign cargo:

our death, oblique and strange,

tagged for redemption,

but stirred to know

the story,

re-lived,

new.

Gift

Satisfaction guaranteed

to broken hearts that need

all that sorrow brings;

a song to sing,

promising

death to

death.

Presence

Let’s walk on distant shorelines,

ragged, rough and romping;

nuanced as the night

for we should not

assume that

we’re not

there.

Breakfast

I ask you, “do you love me?”

You tell me that you do.

I ask you twice more.

You answer me.

My answer?

Broiling

fish.

More Haiku for you

On July 2, 2012July 2, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

Below is the universal symbol for Longing in Chinese, Japanese Kanji, and Korean Hanja

Where else should I be,

but in this sacred presence;

to find my way here?

Once you did find me,

a broken, tear-sodden wretch;

and still you loved me.

One thing I have seen,

an onomatopoeia

has brandished this scene.

Once upon a time,

there shines a glittering light,

then and now and then.

When night is falling

into day from night before,

day has truly come.

Feed me on your flesh,

nourish’d from still deeper veins

and my soul starves not.

Still strings vibrating,

filling the air with sad songs,

and still we’re singing.

I can see your face,

time and space interrupted…

Can you see my face?

Mystic reverie

of clouds, unknowingly, pass.

Entranced in longing.

Satisfied am I

in a Eucharistic haze

of understanding.

My wife always tells me where to go

On June 29, 2012September 1, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living12 Comments

For guys like me who suffer from severe, chronic directional retardation, Diana Ross contributes the quintessential song, “Do You Know Where You’re Going To?” It is an appropriate question for me since, as previously mentioned, I get lost easily. There’s an even more embarrassing reality here…

My wife is a professional cartographer.

She makes maps.

I know! How crazy is that, right? I like to kid her that, not only does she tell people where to go, but then gives them detailed directions as well. In my unredeemed moments when I’m tempted to tell some self-congratulatory stuffed shirt to go to hell, I know where to go for tips on the quickest way there. My wife is an expert in helping people get from A to B and back again. In this way she is a kind of geographical shepherdess, guiding the unwary soul away from the rocks of potential disaster to the still harbor front where rest and Daiquiris await (or tonic and lime in my case).

I’ve been a “professional” church music director for many years. Anyone who does what I do will likely share a similar scenario. When introducing oneself at parties or potlucks, the customary question aimed at one’s spouse is always the same, “and what instruments do you play?” The assumptions here are many, not the least of which is the very 1950s idea that to hire a man for ministry is to hire his wife and family as well. I’m the main guy, she the piano-playing-kid’s-choir-directing-always-polite-and-fashionable-dutiful-wife sidekick; a role for which she is rarely recognized and never paid. Once, while at a party with friends, a certain insistent lady kept pushing for more information on her singing abilities since “that’s what music minister’s wives do.” True to form, Rae replied with the astute comment, “is that the same for you since your husband is a carpenter?”

Well played, my dear. Well played.

She used to be bothered by this presumption. Thankfully, the perception of a thinly-veiled evaluation has worn even more thin over the years. Now we simply chuckle about it.

People have often asked me, why didn’t you marry another musician? I recognize that to be the accepted pattern. In actual fact, she knows a great deal about music and is a passable pianist and organist. We both share a widely eclectic musical palette; everything from Bach and The Chieftains to Sara Bareilles and Death Cab for Cutie. Tellingly however, our younger son, Graeme, once told her she had the singing voice of a goat and that even auto-tune is out of its league here. Dude…nice.

One must understand that musicians, or at least I, swim in a veritable sea of self-referentialism. Ironically, it’s what makes us good at what we do. Artists are generally brooding, too self-aware and then, pushy about it. I’m at the head of that parade. Don’t get me wrong, I love my artsy kindred spirits but, seriously, you really don’t want more than a handful in the same room at any given time, trust me. It’s simply too much Bohemian smug for most church potlucks to accommodate.

No, I’m quite pleased to have met someone who, instead, shares other deep passions of mine – history, geography, old languages, and rain. My undergraduate degree is a B.A. in Music with a major in Vocal/Choral Performance. Hers is a B.A. in History with a minor in Geography. In this curious mix, at least in our better moments, we have seen a much fuller, rounder, doubly satisfying concoction of passions and traits. It means that I can be the king of music, she the queen of history under the same roof. Instead of vying for attention, as artists are wont to do, we have the choice of being each other’s biggest fan.

Granted, this sounds great in theory. It doesn’t always work in reality. But, the lesson is clear. In our darker moments, a poem, joke or song from me can bring hope and cheer to an otherwise bleak situation. She reminds me that men and women have struggled with such darknesses for centuries and that safer shores were never that far away.

Now, when asked why I didn’t marry a musician I can simply say that I needed someone who would tell me where to go, how to get there and, in so doing, help this lost soul be found again.

I know of Someone else who does such things.

Feast of quotidian delights

On June 25, 2012June 26, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing Poetic1 Comment

Swollen palettes, satiated on mystery meat, bread and corn

husked beside the red swing-set after splish ‘n splash at noon.

Summer’s silly sprinkler dance anoints the day

with laughter fit for kings’ tables finely festoon’d.

Checkers played with pennies and monopoly pieces,

and, later, fake dollar bills found buried in the car seats.

Dinner table taunts from Mom and Auntie June

to remove from there our sad and smelly feet.

Now when moon and sun compete for sky,

I chuckle one last sigh before I hit the hay.

My buddy’s fresh, new farts remind me

how soon, in restful sleep, he’ll pay.

Sometimes, when pompous stars have fin’lly come and gone,

and, creeping on the ledge beside my window, at this height,

I wonder when, once more we might revel in

this feast of quotidian delights.

Jars of Clay – A Prayer

On June 25, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christian spirituality, Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living, spiritual formation5 Comments

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 love to pour out 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 so eloquently portrayed 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, so great a 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 holy cups of pure grace, forged in your desires for us.

May it be so, Lord.

May it be so.

And the music played on…

On June 23, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing Poetic2 Comments

The home of a neighbor of a close friend of ours recently burned to the ground. This is a tragedy of the worst kind for anyone. Moreover, it was a place that housed troubled adults. Although no lives were lost, a home and a hope, at least for a time, were.

Sing, little ones. Sing, for the music still plays on…

Strike up the chord from rubbled keys,

fill up your ears on scrawny knees,

push through your threadbare notes with ease,

let the music play on.

For good or ill the band still played,

Titanic-deck’d no songs fore-stayed,

reduced to ash and dust parade,

yet the music played on.

When all has shuttered up within,

let lonely hearts bestirred begin,

to harp, to trump, to violin,

for the music plays on.

And you, with your most treasured fears,

ensconced in burnt and golden tears,

a lilting note from God full cheers,

and the music played on.

“…and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God.” Isaiah 43:2-3

Look now, the broken road

On June 21, 2012June 22, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

A few months ago, as part of a Poetry Party on one of my favorite websites, www.abbeyofthearts.com, I submitted a poem entitled Look now, the blessed road. The theme? In praise of detours. It was received well enough that I thought of adding the yin to that yang. This latest poem illustrates the other part of our spiritual journey, that part full of dark uncertainty, ambiguity, doubt and even pain. Not as much fun to write about but necessary all the same…

Where footsteps once fell, proud and sure,

and met solid pavement with unwavering courage,

now there creeps, under guise of night

a pall, a weary and whimsical word of doubt.

The core of dreams once held aloft to sun-drenched hope

now hide, tucked in folds of fabric and crevice of stone.

Shiver and should, wither and would, careless and could;

the words of humbled discontent and self-abasement

foretell a morning not here, but night so stubborn.

Were it not for the taste of dust

one might mistake white for black, black for naught.

Sharp the shame of whispered this and promised that

when time stood still to salute my place.

Go, for now is not the time for talk or even willful gestures

betokening peace or grace or surety.

Let me drink from the bitter pond if only

to remember the taste of freedom.

Look away, don’t pretend that this one knows

or feels or sees as one should.

No, pray to the silent god, forgotten shadow of something greater.

But for all this, I can see someone lurking,

waiting, longing…for what, I do not know.

So then, here I will sit and wait for this well-known stranger

to, once again,

emerge.

June 21, 2012

Parking lot lost and found

On June 21, 2012June 22, 2012 By robertalanrifeIn Christianity, faith, life together, sacramental living2 Comments

I get lost easily. It’s funny to those who know me best, annoying and perplexing to me. Many is the time I’ve lost my way in the Safeway parking lot, often in an ungodly fog of non-Sunday-school language. After calming down from my diatribe on poor parking lot engineering I begin the pathetic process of self-flagellation that includes the obligatory inner harpy: “if you can’t even find your way out of the parking lot, how do you expect to find your way in the big, bad world with, like…roads ‘n stuff!?”

A case in point: last summer I was hurriedly making plans after a long and complicated week to drive to Cannon Beach, Oregon for a choral directors workshop. As I am wont to do, I left well before I really needed to since that’s what uptight, anal guys like me do. I was particularly proud of my packing prowess having narrowed down my weekly possessions to a single midsize suitcase…well, and my guitar of course…oh, and a bunch of books in a separate bag (not counting snacks, naturally). Being more concerned about early arrival than any other point of preparation I happily hit the road two hours ahead of schedule with the air condition blasting and the tunes blasting even more.

I crested the final hill from Yakima to Ellensberg from which the windmill and horse ranch dotted valley below spoke loudly of itself in multi-colored hue. I sailed past Ellensberg and was impressed with the reasonably well-flowing traffic on the ever-busy I-90 corridor to Seattle. Then, a few miles past the small mountain cowboy town of Cle Elum I hit the intestinal traffic jam with no hope of quick relief to the constipated bumper-to-bumper traffic.

No problem, I thought, I had left plenty early and was listening to a delightful conversation between Krista Tippet and poet/philosopher, John O’Donohue (listen here). I was enraptured and unhurried. Upon finishing the CD I figured a few cell phone calls might help pass the time. One of those was to my wife Rae, (who ironically, makes maps, more on that in my next post) and confidently boasted my ample progress despite poor traffic just past Cle Elum.

A lengthy pause.

“What the hell are you doing in Cle Elum?” she barked, apparently not as chuffed as I on my progress.

Another lengthy pause…

Then it dawned on me. I was in fact on the wrong road altogether!

My retort?

“Yeah, what the hell am I doing in Cle Elum?”

I am now the proud owner of a cool GPS unit that speaks to me in the smooth vocal tones of Sean Connery (snooty bugger) and, thanks to my wife and boys, seldom get lost anymore (please don’t tell them that I generally don’t know how to use it very well).

Sometimes we need road signs, GPS units, spouses, kids and friends to share the burden of our lostness. And the more I think of my proclivity toward directional retardation the more I am reminded of the spiritual parallels here. It’s no surprise that Jesus loved the lost and found metaphor and used it liberally. To be lost is one thing. To be lost and blissfully unaware of it is quite another. It is more sinister, not in the traditional heaven-hell, saved-damned dichotomies; but in the getting-warmer-getting-colder proximity meter as we seek union with God.

I hate the feeling of being lost or losing my sense of direction. But, to hear Connery’s comforting voice say those words I love to hear, “you have reached your destination, shaken, not stirred”, is the highway equivalent of these still better words…

“This one was lost and, now, is found.”