Abba Prayer

Last updated on: January 17, 2013 at 8:25 pm by Mark Van Steenwyk

Abba Prayer 2013-01-17T20:25:17-05:00 Mark Van Steenwyk

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Subvert this society of spiritual insincerity!

These pseudo-saints wear masks of metaphysical maturity
veiling their vulgar visage and voluminous villainy
Prattling proudly, they publicly proclaim their piety. It’s pathetic!

Don’t buy it, brother. Don’t get snared, sister.
As for you, Do the prayers you do…
In the quiet place. Simple words. Unclenched.

Like little kids call for papa and cry for your heaven-momma.
Yes, abba shaped the universe in secret,
but still closer to you than you are to yourself.

Release your held breath and pray:

“We need a regime change!
Not Obama, O, abba-momma.
We need liberation,
From this Bush generation
The violence must stop, O, abba-pop.
An end to this administration
To a divine nation.
A Divinization.

We don’t need laptops and lattes,
Macbooks or machiattos.
We don’t need Ronald McDonald
Or Little Debbie
Famous Dave or Colonel Sanders.
The Red Barron, Jack-in-the-Box, and
The Burger King living in their White Castle.
With subjects fat and starved…
We dull eyed slaves…
consume our liberties.

All we need is what we need…
Bread…
right now.
You.

We beg
For debt forgiveness.
Our bedrooms are wallpapered with past due notices
Homes built upon a mountain of bones.
Cars in our three-stall garages run off the fumes of oppression.
Our lawns fertilized with speeches of leaders.
So we declare bankruptcy!
As the sheriff bars windows and doors.
And we step out over the broken picket fence
To join the protestors occupying the street.

Decrying destitution! Denouncing debt!
Dreaming of democracy.

But, when opportunity arises,
When we too arise to power
And cross back over that fence to take back houses with new mortgages
And lawns
with pesticide purified pristinity
in grids of cement
Cracked people.
Happified by dancing pixels.

Abba.

Deliver us! From delicious diversions that dirty our divinity!
Deliver us! From discontented devouring.
Deliver us, to delight.
To love. Together. To see spirit, swimming in our shared space.
Singing a new song of sensuality.
Abba. Between us.
Abba. In us.
Abba. Above us.
Abba. Beneath us.
Abba. Here.
Abba. Now.
Abba.
Abba.
Abba.

Amen.

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