Jesus: Tell Me What I Am Like

14 February 2008 - Valentine’s Night

Journal Entry:

Had a date this week and as usual I was not at all into it. I decided it was best just to be content with my own company and to find happiness living my life as it is. Valentine’s night was last night and I had this vividly beautiful visionary dream, highly charged with erotic tension:

I find myself standing with a truly handsome young man I know. Middle Eastern with a frank regard wise beyond his years, he has thick dark curls and warm tea colored eyes. The soft shadow of his mustache accentuates his dark good looks. He stands aglow in the dark night at the end of a hitching post, wearing a collarless buckskin shirt. His shirt is the color of wild honey. He studies me with fathomless dark eyes as he eats something I can't see from a wooden bowl. We are alone together where we've just made camp deep in the heart of a red rock canyon. The year is some time in the late 19th century. Somehow I know that communication by wire has not yet arrived in the world outside, beyond our intimate canyon. The nearest town must be hundreds of miles away. The light of our bonfire dances on the canyon walls over our heads. Above the canyon walls, the endless stars glisten in an ink dark sky. His eyes penetrate and ignite my consciousness. Suddenly I am aware that his is a holy presence, like the burning bush on Mount Sinai albeit in the form of this young man. My lungs reel with exquisite tension. I stand before him as on sacred ground. This is my Beloved, the Friend, my God, and our love is the most perfect secret. He smiles knowingly and suddenly my mind is standing naked in front of him. His heart also stands naked. Its impact, like a bolt of lightning, hits me and I am like a tree consumed by fire. My blood races like wild horses through my body. He is a magnet; I am an iron filing. I go to him, sidling against his shoulder, taking his hand in mine. I nuzzle and kiss his golden neck, smell his warm skin. I am drunk on his scent and erupt with even greater longing. He accepts my desire, but only impartially, like the ocean welcomes a river. As I nuzzle his neck, inhaling his musk, he reaches up and offers me a generous handful of what he's eating. I open my mouth to receive this offering. It’s roasted pumpkin seeds, salty, still warm from the iron pan on the fire. I eat the seeds – they are delicious – and I laugh as I ask him, looking at his crisp buckskin shirt, if he – the young Middle Eastern man I know – is now a Native American? He studies me silently. His silence is eloquent. He's not amused by the question, but clearly the fact that I've asked it does amuse him. Finally, after a long and pregnant silence, his warm eyes reflecting the firelight, he answers. “Maybe I am a Native American. Maybe I’m an African. – Maybe I’m nothing at all." Then he asks me a question, which he poses like a puzzle. "Who can say what I am?” I drink his words, my heart wet with love. He looks at me. His eyes say he is far beyond knowledge. END

I awake awash in ardent love. This is how He speaks to me often, in the form of an extremely beautiful honey-colored young man.

I am reminded by his question of logion 13 from the Gospel of Thomas, a Gnostic scripture:

13. Jesus said to his disciples: "Compare me to someone and tell me whom I am like." Simon Peter said to him, "You are like a righteous angel." Matthew said to him "You are like a wise philosopher." Thomas said to him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom you are like." Jesus said "I am not your Master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling spring which I have measured out."

The Gnostic passage above is much older than Matthew 16:13-17 from the NIV Bible:

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" 14 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." 15 "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?" 16Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." 17 Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.

I later went online and looked up pumpkin seeds. They are easy to digest and excellent for promoting healthy male sexual function, a handful a day. But my Beloved has offered me roasted pumpkin seeds. It is a common yogic teaching that desires are like seeds that grow into weeds and thorns, and that we must strive to pull them out by their roots. But even better yet, the teaching follows, we should roast the seeds of desire in the fire of dispassion. By cultivating dispassion, we put an end to desire altogether. Roasted pumpkin seeds do not grow and don't bear fruit. Thus His message to me seems to be, “Roast these useless seeds of worldly desire. What use have you for aphrodisiacs when I am the one you want, and mine is the scent you are after? I am here - where I have always been – inside you.”

The pumpkin itself is a symbol of personal power among some Native American tribes. In China it is a symbol of prosperity.