Maximus Gluteus Aurelius

If you don’t know anything about me, you should know that I am attracted to women with a naturally proportionate Maximus Gluteus Aurelius.

In the hierarchy of the most predictable things about me. Here is the top three things that are the most obvious and Dolapo defining.

• I like good Glutes
• I love Jesus
• I am a Yoruba man

The order might raise eye brows because the immediate assumption is that I am talking about things that define me. When infact I am laying out what the most predictable attributes about me are.

Whether in my sleep, wide awake, when I am in control of my faculties and when I am not. When I am angry and when I am sad. If a female butt is proportionally obvious and naturally fitting to her body. It gets my attention. And I admire it. I usually thank Jesus for the ability to see it, for the reaction it creates in me and the feeling that one day, I will have one to practice and play and speak English to. For now, I look, I see, I move.

In a climate when men are either savage for knowing who they are and what they like or weak for not being clear about it. This feels like a public service announcement or coming out party for me. Going from weak to savage when in reality, I am simply on my own journey to figuring out who the guy I carry around everywhere is. That guy shouldn’t be influenced by who society finds beautiful and powerful and masculine. That guy simply needs to be. Be who he is and get better from there. Often times, I find myself trying to get “better” without nailing “good” down.

I won’t allow myself be who I know I am because I am constantly evolving like a chamaleon that doesn’t know green is its color. Every word, every comment, every displeasure and even applause creates a salient desire to tweak myself to be more or less like the person that made the audience happy or sad. Fortunately, there is no crime in growth and change but change that isnt intentionally or gradual, change that is molded by conflicting factors and stimuli, change that is motivated by perfection tomorrow, these change types are not fortunate.

I cannot live for everybody, neither should I attempt to.

Back to glutes and it’s high rank. In all the many seasons of my life, I have liked a nice butt and I think moving forward, I have no intention of changing that. It’s a most consistent attribute of me.

How about Jesus?! See, I have mostly loved Him all my life but not in every mood or moment every day. In this exercise of self definition, the truth is bitter and even tougher as a pill to swallow.

I honestly wish the one thing, one person that defines me is Christ! Like when you look at me, you say,

“daYUmmmy!! That dude be dripping with Jesus sauce. Can I lick Jesus off his pores cause heaven knows he make Jesus look like honey!”

That would be dope. But I ain’t It. I strive but I definitely wake up many days like yo, why am I living for Jesus? Why am I not living for booty? That sounds like a really great and exhilarating way to live. And then while I am still thinking about that, I go on the gram and find Grammy award booties and I go. Okay Jesus, I need you. Are you ready for the wheel of this day because I can see myself dripping with other things that are not you.

But does this make me not Christian? Does the struggle to live Jesus as my sole lover in pole position indicate anything other than my humanity and my state. I respect men that have submitted and surrendered so long that they aren’t just well dark roast on the outside but they are medium well, just right on the inside. I even know some that are well done in their deepest cuts and manage to be tender, juicy and non crispy on the outside.

I ain’t it. But that is okay. I am on a journey of sanctification and where I begin, where I am is not what counts. It’s the degree to which I am surrendered and the posture of my heart.

For so long, I have viewed following Jesus as this torpedo that dismantles all my identities and leaves me with just one. Jesus lover. But this isn’t what I see in the Scripture.

Saul hates gentiles and persecuted them. Then he gets saved and becomes Paul and guess what, he was STILL obsessed with gentiles but now for their salvation. His obsession didn’t change even though a new found identity changed how he applied his obsession. He went from killing gentiles to saving them.

Peter was a fisherman! When he encountered Jesus, he still loved fishing. So much so that Jesus invited him to be a fisher of men. But get this, when Jesus left, he went back to fishing and that is where Jesus met him.

Moses loved the Israelites so much he killed for them. He met God and that didn’t change, except he had a powerful God backing him in his quest to kill to protect Israel.

Now these men loved things that many of us can relate with. They had passions and obsessions that maybe now I look at and feel like I can see how it fits in God’s hands.

When I look at men and women that model Christ, could it be that I see how it fits now because I have only known their full story and not been a part of their transition? What does it mean for me? How do I fit my appreciation and celebration of female buttocks into a vessel in pursuit of holiness for His use. I don’t.

It’s not for me to fit the nuances of my being into God’s plans. My job is simply to be clear about who I am and continue to invite God unto that clarity. Whatever a potter makes with knotted clay, is the business of the potter. For so long, I have tried to be both a perfect clay and the potter, and I hate to break it to you, Dolapo, it don’t work.

After all that, I wanna stop there but there is this third item on the menu: I am a Yoruba man. Let me tell you a short recent story that puts all three items into perspective and showcases the interplay between them.

Yesterday, I met a 40 year old woman that had a nice butt. A friend of mine took me to this new spot and it was social and friendly and owned by a Christian man. She was sad and lonely and in the midst of her life’s greatest upheaval. No, I didn’t approach her. My friend did. He got her to join our table. I checked her out and thought, she’s cute and dang! Nice butt but nah. I’m good. I’m pursuing holiness.

Overtime, I listened to her story and watched as she loosened up. I simply paid attention to her and asked her questions. I simply genuinely cared to know her story. I found myself empathizing and connecting with her. Her sister joined, I had to take a business meeting, we talked so long her sister was late to get her kids and the night flew by. We got invited to hang out today and I said no then yes then maybe.

Before jumping into how this story fits. Engaging and listening to her yesterday was one of the most fulfilling things I did yesterday. The whole time the Christian in me kept telling me to shut it down. To resist. To walk away. To not be attracted. I was looking at the fact that I won’t marry her hence, it can only be wrong to engage. That would lead her on. Insert all the cliche good Christian rhetorics.

The truth? I think engaging her was probably the most Christian thing I had done yesterday. She totally opened up and broke down. All her walls crumbled. We talked about faith. She brought up Ruth to test me. I gave her a thorough break down of not only Ruth but Naomi too. In the space of 3–5 hours, my friend gave her hugs 3 times and towards the end, I gave her two. Maybe it will lead to me touching her butt, maybe it will not. Maybe I will meet her again and be wrapped up in her story all over again. Maybe I won’t. But the idea that a Christian man is a one that would walk away in that moment just because he is aroused by a woman, I am rethinking all of that. And more significantly, the fact that the expectation of how a Christian should react defines and curtails my perception of myself.

Is it possible that maybe the more I love Jesus, I would see past her butt and be able to lose myself simply into her story but today, it is okay that I was aroused. That I found her attractive. Is it okay that a sexy woman creates a desire in me for sex, at least today. Tomorrow, maybe that will vanish but why lie about where I am today. Why hide behind the perfect facade and act like I didn’t just see something round and nice and it’s not a soccer ball.

I couple all of that with the fact that I think Jesus would have been found in more places like that, out and amongst people that knew him or not, liked him or not, even people that wanted to have sex with him or not. People more importantly that had needs- physical, spiritual, emotional, financial. People isolated and in a cycle of despair. The genius of Jesus to me was not His unscathed perfection — and He was perfect! — but His being mired in the pit of humanity yet remaining fully divine.

Jesus knew who He was and lived powerfully from it.

When I tie in the details of this story to the hierarchy of attributes unmistakable about me, you’ll notice with me that:

• She too had a nice butt
• I made no moves on her
• I connected deeply with her pain and listened.

If the first speaks to what I like, the second speaks to constraint motivated by following Jesus over the desires of a booty. The third explores my Yorubaness.

Yoruba men are often described as Yoruba demon. Demon would be a lesser opposite of what a Jesus lover would strive for. But innate in me is a sense of culture, a sense that I am whole when those around me are whole with me. If I can describe being a Yoruba man in a sentence at least the version that defines me, it will be this:

Find community, live for it but take, when I have given, for myself. In taking, give back generously and take as much as your desires can contain constrained by the essentiality of maintaining the pH balance of a whole community.

Yup. It’s not supposed to make sense. That was part poetry, part linguistics, part well Dolapo idioms.

Time to put a bow on it.

Even though, I am well aware that I have meandered through some snarky, sharky waters to get here. If you are on the journey of self definition, then listen:

It’s okay to start from a messed up place. Don’t let the world’s facade of perfection seep into your honest take on who you are TODAY. When you find yourself today, fall in love with change, let her be like a calm ocean raging through time. Find that dry log or floating suit and lay face up at life’s sun. Right behind the sun, the rainy clouds swooping in to dim your world. Relax, you’ll get old, and sometimes younger. You’ll get angry and sometimes be a sweet heart. Remember, the goal is to be less of who you want to evolve away from, to be more of who defines perfection for you. Less, and more are measurable trends not current state. Measure progress in less and more or status quo but never in instant change. Your destination is not oatmeal, there is no instant version.

I won’t be perfect overnight. I won’t love Jesus first always today but in time with time. By tuning into the frequency that speaks life and molds my knotted clay, I will be more like _____________.

If your blank is Obama or Mother Theresa or Buddha. That’s cool. Mine is Jesus.