Author: robertalanrife

I have spent the better part of my life as a professional musician. Primarily, that has meant the fun and challenging world of church music. Most recently, I have transitioned out of my role as worship and music director for Yakima Covenant Church, Yakima, Washington to global service in Edinburgh, Scotland. I'm a singer-songwriter, liturgist, poet, and writer. I love words. I love to read them. I love to write them. Most of all, I love the many intersections, like a sacramental tapestry, of life, liturgy, literature, the arts, and spiritual formation...oh, and I love haggis.

Psalm 1:1-3, a litany of confession

On March 3, 2013March 3, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Music and the arts, Prayers & LiturgyLeave a comment

Photo found at www.awesomestories.com

In humility and faith, let us confess our sins to God and neighbor.

Kyrie

Kyrie eleison, eleison;

Christe eleison, eleison;

Kyrie eleison, eleison.

(repeat)

Lord, have mercy, have mercy on us;

Christ, have mercy, have mercy on us;

Lord, have mercy, have mercy on us.

^{Psalm 1:1} Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked,

God of holiness, goodness and light,

forgive us for our wanton disregard

of all that is good, acceptable and perfect: your perfect will.

Forgive those times we willingly submit

to that which is beneath our humanity and less

than your expectation, design and desire for our lives.

…or take the path that sinners tread,

Lord of grace,

many have walked the easy and dark road of hate, sin and neglect.

Forgive the ease with which we, too, walk such roads.

…or sit in the seat of scoffers;

Holy One,

if we stay long enough in places less than

our creation, our calling, our creed,

we succumb to skepticism, unbelief and eventually

cynical denial of truth, beauty and goodness.

Guide us away from such horrifying places and open our eyes

to the glory of life-giving love encased in the tenderness of grace.

² but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.

Lord, you are all our delight and the one in whom we revel and rejoice!

³ They are like trees planted by streams of water,

which yield their fruit in its season,

and their leaves do not wither.

In all that they do, they prosper.

Let this life yield its fruit in us, O Lord;

revive all that is dead in us, restoring us to greatness in your name.

Singing together:

Lord, have mercy, have mercy on us;

Christ, have mercy, have mercy on us;

Lord, have mercy, have mercy on us.

Kyrie eleison, eleison…

Beside

On February 25, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing Poetic4 Comments

Beside the chair is a table too small for books,

books too small to read long enough,

in light too bright to hide the inconsistencies;

words too many to possibly live well.

Beside my memory is a tabloid soul

too flirtatious for dining room company,

pureed too finely to enjoy the chunks of life

strewn about the perimeters.

Beside the stumps in the yard

sleep the bones of last year’s plans,

the prickly needles fallen from the curious trees,

the crunch of old promises under feet, newly shorn.

Beside the evening, falling from the grace of day

lie mischievous hints of tomorrow, come too soon

but late enough to collect itself anew

in the hands of another.

Seeds

On February 19, 2013February 19, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing Poetic, Words...always words2 Comments

Like pervasive, unwanted seeds, words find cracks and root in places where gardens are meant to be…

Words, cold and brittle, cast out like seeds

lay in heaps on a warm, tender earth.

One sinks lower than the others and

pushes roots down, cracking open forbidden soil,

wrapping itself around innocent roots

like the tendrils of some old, persistent tale.

Vines grow where magnolias were before.

They boast their unwelcome appearance,

and find unseen cracks, where gardens are meant to be;

places reserved for the fragrant beauty of silent afternoons.

Where once the healthy stalk whispered her delights

into laughing ears, ready for the rest of the story,

now she lay choked, emaciated.

For want of sun, flowers, once taut and certain

cry out against their wanton pursuers.

“This is not life!” they cry.

Pull me from this place of shame

and replace these bony fingers of macabre intent

with a throat renewed, a deeper breath,

and pause to stretch and sigh once more.

Picture thanks to www.spinningspokes.com

Pilfered

On February 16, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing Poetic4 Comments

A poetic hymn celebrating Easter’s promise.

Pilfered by such crimson stains

un-ruin of lost passion’s gaze.

We see, although with borrowed eyes,

the ways of marrow’d bones that cry

and heed tomorrow’s empty plans,

still grasped are we by steady hands.

Once-sceptered race, too weak to sing,

hums strained refrains, the note’s the thing

that begs to be so firmly placed

beside heav’ns door, to see our face.

Pilfered, now, the empty tombs

of prison-ing stone that left no room

for breath, nor sight, life’s dividend

so oft ignored, yet without end.

The beating heart in longing chest

can speak no lies, at love’s request

when barrenness no longer reigns

and God above sees not a stain.

Sorrow’s nest, our broken lot,

lies strewn about, dark chains forgot.

Pilfered, now, once seeing eyes,

which, seeing, saw but only lies

and in such blindness, seeing sought

to see once more what love forgot.

The heart bursts open, warm and full

and knows the place from whence it’s pull:

paraded by heav’ns stunning grace,

now heav’nward, sure, it finds its place.

Secured by love, in hope, transformed

salvation’s gift: the cold heart, warmed.

Spring on Ash Wednesday

On February 12, 2013February 12, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing Poetic3 Comments

Ash Wednesday has come round again to spill forth her penitent goodness. I first posted this last year on Ash Wednesday. Let’s walk the Lenten road together.

Begins again this Springward journey;

rebirthing all that once lived.

Trickle again once fickle brook and stream

sickle sighs yet in repose, sleeping still.

Earth, sore and Winter-stiff, seeks, sighs

stretches out skinny arms of want.

Her cold, hard bosom births not what soon will come

e’er the Sun’s hungry mouth suckles,

fills his lusty gut on hopeful barrenness

feasting on milk of timeworn, weary passage.

* * * * * * * * *

She forgets not the suddenness of late

and sooner dark, splayed upon a fine, greenness

come for to spite the buds of transforming light

bidding death where life has yet to emerge.

Warmly insistent she speaks, sharing her story

poured out over the long-shadowed land.

Bring such bothersome beauty to branchier speech,

fall around us, spilling, foaming such fury

and fermenting our soon-drunk wine of promise;

earthen spirit’s Eucharistic prayer.

* * * * * * * * *

Hush now, silence yourself bold coldness and spare not

freedom’s great gift only taken this once year’s-life.

Steep instead in warmness, worried not for lack

but bubbling and birthing bold words lightly spoken.

Remind us, refresh and reframe what is still rooting,

routing sad night-hood to don the new, the now, the never again;

only to return, restored and restoring,

regenerated, reborn.

Give us again your beauty for our ashes.

Wednesday speaks your secrets.

All in time

On February 8, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

All was time.

There it goes, once it had come.

It went past as it was going.

Now, I see it like I did then.

But then, it had not yet come.

So now, I wait.

A Winter Walk

On February 4, 2013July 21, 2026 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing Poetic2 Comments

The lines carved in her face match

the long, meandering trail of their lives.

His impatient love steadies

her anxious calm, and they know.

They know the steps it takes

to get from house to road and back.

She knows the words that fuel

his little boy insides housed

in gristled and calloused skin.

He hears her voice long after

she has left the house to play Bridge.

He has never done taxes, liked candles

or vacuumed the stairs.

But his love song to her leaves him bloodied –

from stray hammer blows rebuilding the deck;

purple from not looking up to see

the corner of the new shelves for her pantry;

broken from dropping the new pedestal sink

on toes, much more fragile still.

She covered his shivering husk when

he caught pneumonia last year during harvest;

cut his gnarled toenails when his new hip

denied him the movement to do it himself;

combed his hair because, well, it needed it.

Deeply divetted in the haunches of time

were daily walks to the gate by the gravel road.

Their son-in-law took a picture last year.

They were on a winter walk.

It hangs on a silent mantel –

that still remembers them.

Through other eyes

On February 1, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing Poetic2 Comments

Today, I dreamed of pulling leaves from evergreen trees;

of plowing a field of whale skin soup;

of interrupting the mute guy standing, alone, outside the Mission;

of dancing naked in front of the mirror in my Sunday best;

of swallowing whole the corner of my toast;

of shouting quietly up the stairs to my wife in the basement;

of turning around so I can keep going straight ahead;

of loving when my hating heart says otherwise;

of singing when my silent voice denies these notes;

of releasing myself to become heaven’s captive.

The world makes sense through other eyes.

in the s p a c e s

On January 27, 2013March 17, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Life of Rob, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

few of words greater of speech

I bask in the s p a c e s between words

and cheat the answers in pursuit

of the better question

while others scurry beneath their rhyme

pushing them up hills around corners and through doors

I must disavow these letters

these curled up gems and dotted spirits

crossed meanings and severed vowels

but before I can sit down on the edge

of the new I must relinquish

the periods at sentence end.

and replace them with something else,

Sonnet for the Common Man

On January 25, 2013January 25, 2013 By robertalanrifeIn Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

In honor of Robbie Burns, poet laureate of Scotland, born this day in 1759 in Alloway. He ever championed the plight of the common man but, ironically, was the toast of Edinburgh and London high society. Long may his legacy remind us of our need to walk shoulder to shoulder with “the little guy.”

Seen without his hard hat, hammer and a drill,

one could not forget his meager manner.

For, through his calloused hands, he ever strives to build,

with strength not derived from rich man’s banner.

He stoops and bends and heaves with stout, broad shoulders,

through heat of day, his burdens bravely borne.

At evening breezes’ promise, then he’ll hold her,

no heavy burdens carried till the morn.

As silence settles, with no moon, comes darkness,

and dreaming comes to steal away his pain;

in these grey hours his battles cease their starkness,

yet as the new day dawns he’ll start again.