A Beautiful Absurdity: Christian Poetry of the Sacred

By Alan Altany Ph.D.

While the poetry is Christian-based and this book is primarily intended for a Christian readership, people of other spiritual faiths, or no religious faith at all, will find new ways to look at what is meant by God, Jesus Christ, faith and the sacred in an age of profane consciousness and culture. The ideas and ideals of the Christian faith can be integrated into one's life, and each poem offers a fresh perspective at pursuing a life filled with purpose, value, and hope.

The holy absurdity and strangeness of the Christian vision is provocatively presented through a counter-intuitive use of language, metaphors, and images. The reader is challenged to not only experience original insights, but to have what is familiar become strangely new and meaningful.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 19, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667850337

Book preview

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Copyright 2022

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 978-1-66785-032-0 (print)

ISBN: 978-1-66785-033-7 (eBook)

Contents

THE ABSURDITY OF GOD

THE SCANDALOUS CHRIST

JESUS THE ABSURD

THE ULTIMATE ANOMALY

JESUS: Poema 1

JESUS: Poema 2

LOVE: A JESUS PRAYER

PRIMAL LONGING

WHY LOVE?

GROTESQUE GRACE

THE STRANGE CHRIST

WHAT!?

YESHUA’S SHALOM

A RESOUNDING PROOF OF GOD’S EXISTENCE

GOD THE STORYTELLER

YESHUA

ANNUNCIATION

SECRET

VISITATION OF THE DIVINE

SACRED SCANDAL

GOD’S RIGHT-HAND MAN

THE SAWDUST SAINT

THE MADDING CROWD

THE RESURRECTING GOD

ONE DAY IN ANCIENT CARTHAGE

MICHELANGELO’S THE CREATION OF ADAM

GRUNEWALD’S THE CRUCIFIXION

A WILDE LIFE AND DEATH

INFINITE SUFFERING, INFINITE LOVE

16670

ALBERT CAMUS: ABSURD GODLY ATHEIST?

HABIT OF BEING WISE

A CENTURY AFTER WASTELAND

THE MAN FROM KISLOVODSKI

MR. BORIS ROMANCHENKO 

100,000,000 PERFECTLY FORGOTTEN FACES

A UTILITARIAN TORMENT

SETI

ATHEISM AS BLESSING

STEADFAST SUPERSTITION

WE ARE ALL ATHEISTS…

HAPPINESS QUEST

PASSAGE

PANIC & ANXIETY DISORDERING

WHEN PAIN IS NOT ENOUGH

NOTHING BUT LOVIN’

AGE OF SLOTH

MEMENTO MORI… MEMENTO VIVERE

HOMO CHRISTUS

THE 7 DEADLIES

THE LURE OF LIFE

STOP FOR THE SAKE OF LOVE!

NOTES FROM UNDERWATER: 3

YOU SHOULD BE DANCING

OBSCULTA

SOUL-SICK

BEING BROKEN

AMORE E MORTE

POETS

AD MAJOREM DEI GLORIAM

EMBARRASSMENT

THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

I KILLED JESUS

QUO VADIS?

A BAFFLING CATHOLIC

REMEMBERING A SMALL FISH

GOD’S ANT

A MONK’S BURIAL

A MYTHICAL MOMENT IN TIME

HOLOGRAM OF AN IMPOSTER POET

HIPPIE TRIP THROUGH TIME

CARDIO CONTEMPLATION

MACS J0416.1-2403

A POETIC HISTORY OF PAIN

CRAZED LUNGE FOR GOD

SOBRIETY: A HARSH LOVE

47

A MOST OBSCURE, DUBIOUS, INSIGNIFICANT SAINT

ZEKE

GOLDEN HERMITAGE

MIRACLE OF MUSIC

LAST POEM

THE ABSURDITY OF GOD

Absurdity in the extreme,

a purely bizarre theology

teaching that God has needs

and suffers human suffering

while being Creator of all.

A God of passionate humility

who experiences weakness

in each crucifying moment,

empty of the divine claim

of overwhelming power.

This paradoxical God

transforms deeper power

through unconditional love

and a compassionate emptiness

where a sacred heart unites

with every last human soul.

God needs to be God

and needs to love

so that those so loved

can love in the extreme

through contemplative yielding.

This absurd God knows nothing

about cool, distant detachment

and everything about communion

with the aching human spirit.

THE SCANDALOUS CHRIST

One Yeshua of Yahweh,

a scandalous God

of suffered love,

full of sweat, sinew

and blood in obscure

Nazareth, no news

in the Jerusalem tabloids.

Breathing in sawdust

in the carpentry shop

while telling a joke

in Aramaic with a

Hebrew punch line.

Started walking the

hills and teaching

loving the enemies.

So Jewish a man

he enraged some

religious leaders;

slaughtered upright

naked then rises

from rigid death.

Who does that?

JESUS THE ABSURD

How could it possibly be true

if true is to mean anything at all?

How could the Source of existence

humbly enter into that very existence

as a human baby in a Jewish girl’s womb?

It makes no sense. Against all odds.

How could the God of reality

really do the unimaginable,

the incomprehensible, the

bizarre surprise of becoming one

of us to save us from ourselves

out of unrestricted infinite love

while we are so absorbed

with our cravings to be our own gods?

Into a world of evil and suffering

comes goodness without limit?

It’s crazy and more than that, it’s

absurd, contrary to rational expectations

and every theory of theology and science.

How could the ancient God of Israel

burst into being a man for all seasons,

both all divine and all human at once?

It beggars common sense and the intellectual

sophistication of the postmodern 21st century;

supercomputers can’t compute such madness.

Isn’t matter itself all that really matters?

Who could write such a story and not be

declared clinically and culturally insane?

Ignore it and let it fade away,

but there’s something so strange

about it, that it just doesn’t go away,

like a dream that doesn’t disappear

with the coming of the sun’s rise.

But what if it’s true?

Everything would change.

It would be a holy absurdity, too good

not to be true; life would radiate

love