Nasuh

Some time ago there was a man named Nasuh.
He made his living shampooing women in a bathhouse.
He had a face like a woman, but he was not effeminate,
though he disguised his virility, so as to keep his job.

He loved touching the womer as he washed their hair.
He stayed sexually alert, at full strength,
all the time, massaging the beautiful women,
especially the Princess and her ladies-in-waiting.

Sometimes he thought of changing jobs,
of doing something
where he wouldn’t be so constantly lustful,
but he couldn’t quit.

He went to a mystic saint and said,
“Please remember me in a prayer.”

That holy man was spiritually free,
and totally opened to God. He knew Nasuh’s secret,
but with God’s gentleness he didn’t speak it.

A gnostic says little, but inside he is full of mysteries,
and crowded with voices. Whoever is served
that cup keeps quiet.

The holy man laughed softly and prayed aloud,
“May God cause you to change your life
in the way you know you should.”

The prayer of such a sheikh is different
from other prayers. He has so completely dissolved
his ego, nothinged himself, that what he says
is like God talking to God. How could
such a prayer not be granted?

The means were found to change Nasuh.
While he was pouring water into a basin
for a naked woman, she felt and discovered
that a pearl was missing from her earring.

Quickly, they locked the doors.
They searched the cushions, the towels, the rugs,
and the discarded clothes. Nothing.
Now they search
ears and mouths and every cleft and orifice.

Everyone is made to strip,
and the queen’s lady chamberlain
probes one by one
the naked women.
Nasuh, meanwhile,
has gone to his private closet, trembling.

“I didn’t steal the pearl,
but if they undress and search me,
they’ll see how excited I get
with these nude ladies.
God, please,
help me!
I have been cold and lecherous,
but cover my sin this time, PLEASE!
Let me not be exposed for how I’ve been.
I’ll repent!”
He weeps and moans and weeps,
for the moment is upon him.
“Nasuh!
We have searched everyone but you. Come out!”

At that moment his spirit grows wings, and lifts.
His ego falls like a battered wall.
He unites with God, alive,
but emptied of
Nasuh.

His ship sinks and in its place move the ocean waves.
His body’s disgrace, like a falcon’s loosened binding,
slips from the falcon’s foot.

His stones drink in water.
His field shines like satin with gold threads in it.
Someone dead a hundred years steps out well
and strong and handsome.
A broken stick
breaks into bud.

This all happens inside Nasuh,
after the call that gave him such fear.

A long pause.
A long, waiting silence.

Then a shout from one of the women, “Here it is!”
The bathhouse fills with clapping.
Nasuh sees his new life sparkling out before him.

The women come to apologize, “We’re so sorry
we didn’t trust you. We just knew
that you’d taken that pearl.”

They kept talking about how they’d suspected him,
and begging his forgiveness.

Finally he replies,
“I am much more guilty
than anyone has thought or said. I am the worst person
in the world. What you have said is only a hundredth
of what I’ve actually done. Don’t ask my pardon!

You don’t know me. No one knows me.
God has hidden my sneakiness. Satan taught me tricks,
but after a time, those became easy, and I taught Satan
some new variations. God saw what I did, but chose
not to publicly reveal my sin.

And now, I am sewn back into wholeness!
Whatever I’ve done,
now was not done.
Whatever obedience I didn’t do,
now I did!
Pure, noble, free, like a cypress,
like a lily,
is how I suddenly am. I said,
Oh no!
Help me!
And that Oh no! became a rope
let down in my well. I’ve climbed out to stand here
in the sun. One moment I was at the bottom
of a dank, fearful narrowness, and the next,

I am not contained by this universe.

If every tip of every hair on me could speak,
I still couldn’t say my gratitude.

In the middle of these streets and gardens, I stand and say
and say again, and it’s all I say,
I wish everyone
could know what I know.“