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Posts categoriezed as tattoos

Marks of the cross that don’t rub off

Marks of the cross that don’t rub off published on No Comments on Marks of the cross that don’t rub off
Tattoo representing the Fourth Station: Jesus
meeting his mother

As mentioned previously, I’m a tattooed person. Not heavily so, but I’ve got ’em. I also have, after quite a lot of observation of other people’s tattoos and their explanations of why they got them, developed a schema regarding the central elements of getting a tattoo:

1) Placement: where does it go on your body, and how is it aligned?
2) Significance: what is its meaning, and how well is that conveyed?
3) Aesthetics: how good does it look, in the end?

These are weighted differently for different people, but they’re all important. Discount any one of those three, and you’re on your way to a bad tattoo. A highly meaningful, beautiful tattoo will very likely still be regretted if you get it in a place where you might later want to hide it but can’t, or it doesn’t work with your body. A beautiful tattoo in a good place that means nothing to you might be just fine if you’re already covered with other tattoos, but if it’s your only one or one of just a few, you might later wonder why you bothered getting it. A tattoo which is very important to you and in a good place but looks bad will leave you regretting that you didn’t choose to represent such a significant thought better.

With regard to meaning, it’s cliche that you shouldn’t get the name of a significant other tattooed on you. It’s tempting fate, practically foretelling the end of what was previously considered a rock solid, everlasting case of true love. I would even say that in most cases it’s probably not a good idea to get text tattooed on yourself, though there are exceptions. The name of a deceased relative or your child is probably pretty safe– the deceased relative is gone and cannot change (though I suppose you could discover something horrible about them posthumously, the likelihood of that seems small) and whatever happens with your child, he/she is still your child.

What about….your religion?

 In a hip, artsy, area of Houston, a hip, artsy pastor is taking an unorthodox approach to Lent.
Standing in front of his congregation at Ecclesia Church, a congregation he admits is different – more diverse, more urban – than many evangelical churches – Chris Seay encouraged them to do so something he said combines the ideas of sacrifice and devotion that mark the Lenten season, the 40-day lead up to Easter. He asked them to get tattoos. Specifically, he asked congregants to get a tattoo corresponding with one of the Stations of the Cross, the collection of images that depict scenes in Jesus’ journey to his crucifixion. “The tendency we have as Christians is to skip past Jesus’ suffering,” Seay said in an interview. “Not only do tattoos come with a bit of suffering, they are also an art form that has not fully been embraced.” To help with the project, Seay enlisted Scott Erickson, artist-in-residence at his church. Erickson designed 10 distinct Stations of the Cross tattoos, leaving out four stations that Seay said changed in context when you are asking someone to get something permanently drawn on their body.

So, not just religious tattoos (though those are numerous, in most religions you can think of as well as plenty more). Tattoos encouraged by your pastor, within specific parameters, applied by your church’s artist-in-residence. The article doesn’t say which four stations of the original 12 Stations of the Cross were left out because they change in context as tattoos, but I’m guessing “Jesus is stripped of his garments” is one of them.

It’s up to them, of course, but it doesn’t sound like the best idea to me. First, because people have been known to change religions, or deconvert entirely. Second, because even if they don’t change religion, they might leave this church. And if they do, they would leave it bearing a very specific mark that ties them to every other member of the congregation who likewise decided to participate in this. Third, because that’s a whole lot of constraint on the design and aesthetic quality of the tattoo that they might not have chosen for themselves otherwise. Individuals opt to get tattooed ritually– that is, to make a religious ritual out of the experience of getting tattooed itself– all of the time. But to make a proposition of such to a congregation on the occasion of Lent seems…well, pushy. Like some people might feel encouraged to get a permanent mark etched on their skin as a signal to pastor and/or congregation of their commitment, rather than as a signifier to themselves as individuals of the meaning of Jesus’ sentencing, suffering, death, and resurrection.

Other people can argue about whether getting a tattoo in the first place is fundamentally irreligious. I don’t believe it is. It seems to me that if people do something for the sake of religion, it can’t be irreligious by definition. I also don’t care to play No True Christian and take a side on whether it’s doctrinally appropriate for believers of the Bible to get tattoos (though there are comments on that in the article itself if you wish to play). The pastor (Seay) says he has dissuaded some congregants from getting tattoos after announcing the idea, though the article doesn’t discuss why.

The standard objection to tattoos is “How is that going to look when you’re old?” I’d say a much more important concern is “How are you going to think about that if/when you become a different person, or when others do?”

On bumper stickers and “bumper stickers”

On bumper stickers and “bumper stickers” published on 3 Comments on On bumper stickers and “bumper stickers”

From The Washington Post: Looking to Avoid Aggressive Drivers? Check Those Bumpers:

Watch out for cars with bumper stickers.
That’s the surprising conclusion of a recent study by Colorado State University social psychologist William Szlemko. Drivers of cars with bumper stickers, window decals, personalized license plates and other “territorial markers” not only get mad when someone cuts in their lane or is slow to respond to a changed traffic light, but they are far more likely than those who do not personalize their cars to use their vehicles to express rage — by honking, tailgating and other aggressive behavior.
It does not seem to matter whether the messages on the stickers are about peace and love — “Visualize World Peace,” “My Kid Is an Honor Student” — or angry and in your face — “Don’t Mess With Texas,” “My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student.”
Hey, you clown! This ain’t funny! Aggressive driving might be responsible for up to two-thirds of all U.S. traffic accidents that involve injuries.
Szlemko and his colleagues at Fort Collins found that people who personalize their cars acknowledge that they are aggressive drivers, but usually do not realize that they are reporting much higher levels of aggression than people whose cars do not have visible markers on their vehicles.
Drivers who do not personalize their cars get angry, too, Szlemko and his colleagues concluded in a paper they recently published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, but they don’t act out their anger. They fume, mentally call the other driver a jerk, and move on.
“The more markers a car has, the more aggressively the person tends to drive when provoked,” Szlemko said. “Just the presence of territory markers predicts the tendency to be an aggressive driver.”

From The Spectrum, independent student publication of the University of Buffalo: Why Put a Bumper Sticker on a Ferrari?:

Ladies, I know you’re at least at the legal age of making your own decisions, but before you decide to get a tattoo, allow me to let you in on a little secret. A secret you may have not fully realized yet thus far in your life. What you must understand is, as women, we are – naturally – beautiful creatures.
Seriously, though. Your body literally has the ability to turn heads. Guys drool over us. We hold some serious power in our hands, because – as corny as this sounds – we hold the world’s beauty.
But something girls seem to forget nowadays, or maybe have not been taught, is that women hold the world’s class and elegance in their hands, as well. So what’s more attractive than a girl with a nice body? I’ll tell you what: a girl with class. Looks may not last, but class does. And so do tattoos.
An elegant woman does not vandalize the temple she has been blessed with as her body. She appreciates it. She flaunts it. She’s not happy with it? She goes to the gym. She dresses it up in lavish, fun, trendy clothes, enjoying trips to the mall with her girlfriends. She accentuates her legs with high heels. She gets her nails done. She enjoys the finer things in life, all with the body she was blessed with.
But marking it up with ink? That’s just not necessary.

I have both bumper stickers and tattoos. Draw your own conclusions.

(Hat tip to Dr. X)

The saddest tattoo

The saddest tattoo published on 4 Comments on The saddest tattoo

Oh, I know there are sadder ones– Ugliest Tattoos is on my blogroll.  But this one must be way up there:

I have a recommendation for his left arm, though—something from Leviticus 19.   Lev 19:26 Eat not on the mountains, nor shall ye employ auguries, nor divine by inspection of birds. Lev 19:27 Ye shall not make a round cutting of the hair of your head, nor disfigure your beard. Lev 19:28 And ye shall not make cuttings in your body for a dead body, and ye shall not inscribe on yourselves any marks. I am the Lord your God. Lev 19:29 Thou shalt not profane thy daughter to prostitute her; so the land shall not go a whoring, and the land be filled with iniquity.  Uh-oh. So even if this wrestler avoids the temptation to lie with a man, he’s damned by Leviticus 19:28. Heck, at this point he might as well go get funky and wild with a quadruped.

What gets me, though, is just the idea that someone would be so committed to disapproving of homosexuality that they’d see fit to indelibly mark that disapproval on their body.  Normally when people get Bible versus tattooed on them (and plenty do, regardless of what Leviticus may say), it’s something inspiring.  Something from Psalms, or perhaps John 3:16.  Not this guy– he wants to be sure the world knows that he thinks an Old Testament verse condemning homosexuality from a chapter immediately preceding one that condemns bad haircuts is right on the money.  Well okay, thanks for sharing.  Maybe if he turns out to be gay himself, or just realizes that there is in fact nothing wrong with being gay, he can use this tattoo as an object lesson on how minds change.  I’ll be optimistic and hope that he already does.