Christian & Tattoos

Several months ago I was finishing a retreat at a mountain top monastery in Santa Barbara. On the last day the Prior preached. He began by referring to the last addition of The Christian Century. The lead article is entitled, "The Christian & Tattoos - Marked"... it was the center of his sermon.

After briefly restating the article, he said, "...that getting tattooed seemed to be a kind of sacrament, a way of bearing in the body and before the world something about one's deepest identity. And that, in a world lacking in 'rites of passage,' it becomes an experience that our American culture by and large lacks."

"Christ himself is marked. Our tradition teaches that the resurrected body of Jesus -- that mysteriously transformed yet recognizable human presence, that flesh bearing the wounds, the very scars of the life-giving passion -- is not discarded or thrown off or transcended, but is exalted and honored and seated in the heavenly places. It is a radical claim ... a challenge to our own experience of living in these particular bodies, in this material world. It reminds us that we -- body, soul, spirit, and our whole creation has an external and exalted destiny.

"Jesus is marked. And so are we. Each of us bears the 'imago dei', the divine image, whether we are aware of it or not. And each of us who has been baptized within Christ, bear his mark, his cross, his wounds on our soul. We, each of us, have been tattooed, if you will, into God's gang, God family ... thought we all too often betray those marks by our hatred and disobedience. But it is there.

"I wonder this morning what would happen if our marks, the tattoos of our faith, were to suddenly become visible. What would they say, what would they portray? What would the world read on our bodies/our souls/our lives/our action individual or corporately on that Body which is Christ's Church?

"I have to remind myself: I do have some choice. And the question I ask myself today is: What does the tattoo of my life say to me, to those around me, and to a suffering and fragile world? And what would I like it to say? Were I to visit a tattoo parlor this afternoon what would I have inscribe on my arm, my forehead, my heart? Sh'ma Yisroel? Simul Justus et Perccator? God is Love? Jesus is Lord? God be merciful to me a sinner?

"What would you choose; for in a sense we must choose daily, hourly. What would you choose? May God grant us all the grace to choose well.

A Note on Retreats...

I sometimes wander off to these places to get away. It's a good thing.



The thing about going away is that you get some time to refresh but when you come back, you come back to the same problems you left behind.

THE DUST BIN OF HISTORY AWARD

A partial list of previous recipients include:

Karl Rove

California State Representative Anthony Portintino

The doorman at Dick's Cabaret

President George W. Bush (multi-times)

The North Carolina State Baptist Convention

Senators Larry Craig and David Vitter

Rev. Fred Phelps (for whom this award was first given)

Wayne Lusvardi - the "Antichrist" of Pasadena?”

Sally Kern - Oklahoma House Representative

Archbishop Akinola - Should remember the role of a servant
U.S. Rep Paul Broun- who is just hateful.

Kern County Princess Ann Barnett - faith before her duty.

high school principal Eddie Walkers - faith before righteousness.

Most people submit potential DBOHA names by by email ... you may also obtain a complete list of past recipients by posting that request below.

Six year old wisdom ...

Notes from the Garden… #103

There are so many people who have made my garden great. Anyone who gardens knows that God is always in the process. Several years ago Christian, then the six-year-old grandson of our Orthodox neighbors, found me pruning roses on a Sunday morning. “How 'comes' you aren’t in church,” he challenged me. "I was!”

“What did you learn?” I asked.

“I learned about the Transfiguration,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked. “It is too complicated for you to know.” Christian said.

For some people gardens are complicated; some know the names of all the weeds … but everyone, no matter who you are, can sit in one and listen to the wisdom of a six year old.

ARCADIA, LEMON TREES AND YARDDOG

The older I get, the more I know about threes. Perhaps that is part of life. I don’t know their botanical names yet, but I know how to prune them, especially fruit trees. Several of my friends even call me an arborist. My neighborhood isn’t perfect but the trees are. They are a joy.

I learned most of what I know from my next door Greek neighbor. One day I met Alex in front of his house. “Why are you staring at your apricot tree?” I asked. In his thick accent he responded: “I am talking to my tree. It is telling me how to cut it. Listen.”

So Alex began to show me what his tree was “saying.” “I can show you what your apricot is saying, too.” He suddenly bounded into my yard and I began to learn a whole new language, one my trees “spoke.”

That is how my affair with trees began. Those long and quiet conversations led to beautiful trees, sharing fruit, giving new knowledge away to others and building a small community on Palm Drive in Arcadia.

Across the street from us was one special tree – a lemon tree. It produced the biggest lemons in the world. The average lemon from that tree was bigger than a grapefruit! I sent those lemons to my childhood home in York, PA.., shared them at church and used them in cooking; we all did. The former owner always said, “Take whatever you want.” Our entire neighborhood shared its abundance.

Recently someone new bought that property. They knocked down the house and tore up the lemon tree. A huge bulldozer took out in two minutes what we had seen grow for 40 years. Not only did they kill that lemon tree but they chopped down a city tree as well. That city elm made our street a tree-lined drive.

“They don’t like trees that block the front door.” The Arcadia city tree man told me.

“What do you mean: they don’t like tree in front of their house? Can’t you make them replace it?”

"Well, there is a fine, and a new tree will be planted.”

"... the same size as the old one?” I demanded.

“No, no, just a new tree.”

So, yesterday I began to wonder, how does a community fall apart? How can a public tree be killed just because someone doesn’t like it facing his front door? Does anyone care about a lemon tree that grew the biggest lemons in the world or how those trees will no longer make a small neighborhood a real community?

My mother who is 80 years old said: “I wish we could have said goodbye to it. We will never see another tree like that one.” I could not respond and perhaps there are no answers to any of those questions.

What I know is that I have live here and grown old with those trees. My father died in his house here. I have gone through our schools, have mowed and watered my lawn, tended my gardens, paid my taxes and made this town the kind of place others now desire and move into with such a seeming disregard for what we have cared for and loved.

Next year there will be a huge new house across the street. But I will remember those two old trees, see the shape of the fruit, smell those lemons and miss the shade from the elm. And in another 40 years? Well, neither my mother nor I will live long enough to see that a new little tree grow to make Palm Drive a tree-lined street again.

Originally written and published on August 29, 1999