Category: Prayers & Liturgy

but slower still the ones who sleep

On By robertalanrifeIn Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

cemetery 

 

 

 

 

 

 

for friends lost

tuesday april 16 2013

__________________

but slower still the ones who sleep

in lonely earth now hungrily dining

upon their broken bones

a soil home full too soon

but languish not these shining ones

for now their mercurial feet

dash from joy to light and back again

in the presence of still greater ones

who welcome their company

though we see not their dancing soles

and feel the loss beneath our own

their slow sleep tells stories

of happier waking dreams

now their own

 

Picture: www.portfolio.du.edu 

the earth moves slowly now

On By robertalanrifeIn Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing PoeticLeave a comment

for boston

monday april 15 2013

__________________

the earth moves slowly now

while rubble collects dust settles

my ears ache and i cant hear

the screams of the man beside me

looking for his other leg

sad he was a runner like me

this is a different kind of grief

complete and horrifying in clinical precision

respecter of no one

those who run to revenge

those who pray for peace

those who still dont know

those who look the other way

either way

running to grace is still better

than running away in fear

because the earth moves slowly now

Restore

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

holding hands

Reaching from out to in, future through past for this tactile day.

Evading the magnetic north of separation,

still looking for merging places past submerging faces.

Tacit in self-flagellation, preferring the flesh of music,

origins reemerge and kiss what will be with lips of what was,

resuscitates love not so long lost but with luster removed.

Eternity wins out over the bully of time and

restores to earth what belongs to heaven.

Picture: www.justapieceofcraps.blogspot.com

Follow me…a litany

On By robertalanrifeIn Prayers & Liturgy2 Comments

images

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How good it is whenever we leave all false agendas, desires, plans, schemes, thoughts –

our very selves behind and obediently follow the Master without hesitation.

…and he said to him, “Follow me.”

How good to imagine a world where those without hope are given hope

because the community of Jesus follow the leading of their Master and Teacher

and bring this hope in all they say and do.

…and he said to him, “Follow me.”

How good it is to host the Presence, keeping company with sinners, tax collectors, lepers and the outcasts.

…and he said to him, “Follow me.”

How good to have ears to hear the voice of Jesus calling to us,

urging us to follow him wherever he goes,

participating with him in bringing the new wine of God’s kingdom to light around us.

…and he said to him, “Follow me.”

How good to live before God every moment with godly sorrow for our sin,

fully embracing our brokenness in honesty and authenticity.

…and he said to him, “Follow me.”

How good to celebrate with all whose repentance brings new life

and an accompanying deep life change even when such celebration causes raised eyebrows.

…and he said to him, “Follow me.”

How good never to allow ourselves to succumb to religious peer pressure

that traps one in the smothering flames of imposed, restrictive faith life

and thereby lessen the gospel message in compliance with it.

…and he said to him, “Follow me.”

How good never to succumb to the same judgmental spirit which produces and perpetuates religious peer pressure.

“Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

…and he said to him, “Follow me.”

How good to taste the old, complexly rich and fragrant wine of our forebears

while working in the vineyard alongside our Master Winemaker.

…and he said to him, “Follow me.”

How good to be in our places of work, looking left and right

to find those of ill repute and the despised with whom to drink new wine.

…and he said to him, “Follow me.”

How good to stand in the place where others are,

be the voice of Jesus calling to them, saying “follow me”

and teach them how to catch others in the net of grace.

…and he said to him, “Follow me.”

How good to be those who hold the redemptive instruments of grace

at the bedsides of the broken together with our great Physician.

…and he said to him, “Follow me.”

How good to bring encouragement to all whose “bridegroom” has been taken from them

either by sickness, death or malfeasance.

…and he said to him, “Follow me.”

How good…

How good, indeed.

Praise be to the Lord of all lepers, losers, limpers and lovers.

…and he said to him, “Follow me.”

Photo from www.sermonreflections.blogspot.com

Psalm 1:1-3, a litany of confession

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

awesomestories.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo found at www.awesomestories.com

 

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

Kyrie

©2008 by Robert A. Rife

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…

Spring on Ash Wednesday

On 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.

 ash wednesday

 

 

 

 

 

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.

A Prayer After Epiphany

On By robertalanrifeIn Prayers & Liturgy9 Comments

Lord of the blind and those who will not see,

replace our black with grey;

our grey with white;

our white with light;

and all that is not what it seems will become what it must be.

 

Lord of the destitute and drawn-out,

lance these boils of sin-soaked pain

in the brine of salted, holy blood;

revive what we never knew was dead;

that the winds might catch your scent – the fragrance of grace.

 

Lord of the convinced and righteous,

remove from us our certainties;

our ambivalence toward ambiguities;

our reticence to swim in the waters of paradox;

that the world gets to see your way in us, not our way with you.

 

Lord of the fractured and forgotten,

seek out the silenced voices encased in amber

where no one hears their desperate choking;

no eye sees inside their deceiving exteriors;

find them and with white hot love, melt their prisons.

 

Lord of the shiny and gleaming,

scratch our taut and brittle surfaces;

add the character of time to our faux beauty;

send us the numbing ache of obscurity;

so that your gentle glow outshines our brash gleam.

 

Lord of all that lives,

plow the musky mutations from our once-breathing gardens;

unbalance our stiletto lives that teeter precariously;

releasing us from our cramped smallness;

that our spirits may once again yawn and stretch into life.

We wait…

On By robertalanrifeIn Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing Poetic5 Comments

Amid a veritable horde of other materials available for us to share in Advent together, I submit another poem/prayer. May the angst, ambivalence, austerity and frustration of waiting be rewarded in our common longing for the coming Light.

Too many moons after too many suns and still,

we wait.

To arise to yet another day with no sight of promises end,

we wait.

My great, great, great, many more great grandparents told this same tale,

we wait.

My great, great, great grandchildren…will they tell this same tale?

We wait.

Once pliable, elastic and hope-filled words, spoken from that creepy prophet guy in my history textbook,

we wait.

In hopscotch rhymes, coffee table books and riddles for the Sunday newspaper,

we wait.

Faithless ones mock, faithful ones pretend to believe, seeking ones struggle to hope,

we wait.

Stuck in one solitary spot, floating in an endless ocean of shark infested water,

we wait.

Nine year old boys sneak their umpteenth grab of dinner being prepared a year after lunch,

we wait.

We’ve long ago forgotten or even care about what we were waiting for,

we wait.

Will we even know

when the waiting is over?

Still,

we wait…

On this day

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On this day when thoughts of good and well and right

infuse themselves in stomachs bursting full,

one needs pause to see the irrelevance of might

and from our best, our bright, our love, to cull

all memory, satiated with fear of less

and stop to ponder on this day

what better ways we might glean to redress

the empty mouths and lives of those without say.

For this once year time we’re given time

for smiles of loved ones, lives of laughter’d ranks.

Then through the eyes of gratitude we’ll climb

to rest in God’s full bosom, hearts ripe with thanks.

Let God speak

On By robertalanrifeIn Prayers & Liturgy, Waxing Poetic8 Comments

Through cinnamon skies and ochre afternoons

where stillness reigns the day, and find

that all but trouble is welcome there,

let God speak.

In whispered whine of whippoorwills,

the tawdry tones of turtle songs,

the manic music made of nature’s hubris,

let God speak.

In Grandma’s flare for tasty treats

and children’s flare for eating them

their sticky, tie-dye candy rainbow teeth,

let God speak.

In Mother’s cautious, insistent drone

for teenage bravado of foolish boys

and chatty girls with nothing better to do,

let God speak.

In uncles, aunts and janitors,

whose stories tell of tales worth telling,

fostered in life’s mandibles,

let God speak.

In days that strike and nights that stain

with little pause for joy or cheer,

and time refuses to budge,

let God speak.

In sightless eyes still seeing more,

the pounding heart in fear or shame,

whose sleep is enemy and not friend,

let God speak.

 

Let God speak.