The Way of Abba
October 5, 2009
The Way of Abba is a universal path that is not a religion, not a creed. It is a way based upon values that are universal, values whose authority is not a matter of choice but of experienced necessity.
Each four line segment below is distilled from my book Abba’s Way and each represents one facet of a universal way. The unity expressed exists as a reality in a world where all oppositions have been overcome and everything that is is spectrum.
Abba is justice love and peace
Abba is creativity
Abba is closeness and release
Abba within will set us free
Abba removes resentment with one breath
And with one touch prepares us for his way
The way of life that lives on after death
Abba within turns darkest night to day
Abba whose home in heaven is
Hallowed and holy is your name
Let your realm come your will be done
Til earth and heaven are the same
And let no depth remain a cause to fear
Abba descends Abba is everywhere
Stop listen look and Abba will appear
And with one touch turn all that’s foul to fair
Can we not see what Jesus sought to show
That possibility had grown tenfold
Not ten a thousand million I don’t know
I only know the vision was too bold
Come share this exaltation laugh with me
Come take my hand for Abba shows us how
This is the way our life is meant to be
Come take my hand for Abba binds us now
Consider the Beatitudes once more
That happiness lies past unhappiness
It is not abject meekness we are for
But rather toward inheritance we press
Deliver us from evil Lord
And guide us safely to your shore
Yours is the power to heal and mend
Yours is the glory evermore
Deliver us we pray deliverance
Come rescue us come carry us away
This life of ours would be a sorry dance
If Abba did not love us all the way
Despised rejected beatific too
The way of Abba is all three and more
Beware when recognition comes to you
See that your eyes remain on Abba’s shore
External murders words deeds fields of blood
Reflect more than our outer history
The covenant made following the flood
Is still in force though we still fail to see
False honors turn life into living hell
But those who see just go their own free way
And sit loose as tradition’s slow death knell
Sounds out across the world and fades away
False messiahs feed on battered souls
They practice hellish rituals of death
You give your yes to their seductive goals
And even pledge to them your final breath
Give us this day our daily bread
Forgive the wrongs that we have done
As we forgive those who do wrong
Lead us not into temptation
Heaven is the place where we are free
Heaven is the place where Abba lives
Heaven is beloved community
Heaven is the place where all forgives
I break all bars of prisons bearing signs
Named poverty disease and downcast need
My drive to justice breaks all borderlines
And rids all hearts of envy lust and greed
I come to turn the howls of placelessness
The frantic shrieks of isolence and pain
The dogged choruses of emptiness
Into sweet songs to Abba once again
I preach to you the one who is in you
Who helps you overcome what holds you back
For there is nothing that you cannot do
When your train rolls upon the Abba track
If Abraham’s religions could all see
They’d look within and Abba would be there
Where Abba’s been since Jesus set us free
To forge a future loving just and fair.
In exaltation lies a unity
For unity is Abba’s gift to give
A gift of such supreme simplicity
We know that in receiving it we live
Jesus said the kingdom is at hand
Repent believe and then he simply healed
Each simple act the flames of hatred fanned
And thus was divine blasphemy revealed
No more divided depths the fearsome form
That leaves death’s stamp upon the sands of time
The schools of emnity that are the norm
Must now become the schools of the sublime
Palm Sunday is a paragraph in Mark
As though a memory was there that’s all
Quick scenes as Jesus journeys toward the dark
And there completes our release from the fall
Past lives reincarnation chimeras
Imaginings that minimize our lives
We are ourselves not someone else who was
If I live on it is I who survives
Stark violence that always lurks within
Observe it say no to it leave it be
Grasp freedom to move on and thus to win
A space where finally we can be free
The way ahead digs deep into the past
Past councils emperors and churchly creed
To hear the Galilean speak at last
The very words the world has yet to heed
The way is to give up on being seen
And to give up on being understood
Or ever claiming we know what things mean
Save only this we live for Abba’s good
The miracles he wrought were grasped with joy
By poor and maimed and lost and penitent
But some sought his way swiftly to destroy
For placing in our grasp the heaven-sent
The way of Abba is to sing the prayer
The simple prayer Jesus once taught to all
Yes simply sing it without show or flair
For it contains the essence of the call
We all support the ministries of pain
And leave the children writhing hopelessly
And then unconscious do it yet again
Oblivious to our hypocrisy
We are an effort pushing toward the light
We are an effort riding on strong tides
We are an effort see and do not fight
We’re Abba’s effort Abba’s will abides
When Jesus climbed the cliff and Satan saw
He would not be constrained by ancient ways
The die was cast for Jesus broke the law
And for such crimes the prophet always pays
Where is the center when all is dispersed
Abba within beyond showing the way
Summons to movements as yet unrehearsed
Hold on have faith for Abba wins the day
Whole lives are spent locked in a conflict rage
No inkling of the way of Abba known
If this is true of you then turn a page
And feel the freedom once the rage has flown
You are the one who is and who shall be
That is your name you spoke it from the flame
And now you live in us if we but see
And will till earth and heaven are the same
If gambling was chance I might prevail
But all those great portentous turns and rolls
Are nothing but a preordained travail
By which the bell for every gambler tolls
