He writes about what he calls “the lust for the holy” across the boundaries of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.
His latest book features several new homoerotic poems about Jesus, including “Pursuing our Pleasure in the Body of Christ” (reprinted with permission below) and “Krishna and Jesus in Algonquin Park.” (reprinted in full in my previous post “What if Christ and Krishna made love?”) The new book also provides a glimpse of Jesus enjoying a naked interlude with Guru Nanak, founder of Sikhism.
Day blends gay and religious themes in a way that illuminates both queer experience and all spiritual expression. Visit Lambda Literary Review for my full review of the book.
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Pursuing our Pleasure
in the Body of Christ
By Brian Day
There is no further body of Christ but this smoothed aggregate
of human flesh. We are the athletic limbs
of his swimming through the world, the hands of all
his practical acts. But hands and limbs are not all of a body,
and those parts of Christ we might conceal
must elicit from our mouths a particular esteem.
The body of Christ is built for delight, and not one
of its vivifying organs can be scorned. The kindling sites
of our communal body take part in our sacred
and carnal commission, this ignition of flesh in its knowledge
as flesh. We caress the completeness of our one body, explore it
with palms, alert it with fists. We lick a glistening
array of physiques, knowing the foreign and knowing
ourselves, knowing Christ in each of his tissues and hollows,
straining toward completer knowledge in this keen narcissistic
congregation of flesh. We train each finger, each muscle, each
follicle to take its place in the communion of Christ. And we,
so flooded with desire for the countless strong members
of the body of Christ, what should we in desire
strive for? We would strive to be those zones
of the holy within the common body of Christ, the seats
of pleasure where he excites himself
into vibrant and ever more electric being.
***
Biblical references:
1 Corinthians 12.27 and Romans 12.4-5
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Related links:
Jesus poems: Homoerotic taste of heaven
(review of the book “Conjuring Jesus” by Brian Day)
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This post is part of the Queer Christ series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. The series gathers together visions of the queer Christ as presented by artists, writers, theologians and others.
Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
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