For years I have carried the memory of a sermon in which an Episcopal priest posed the question of why we don’t anoint people with indelible oil. That is, when we are baptized—marked as Christ’s own forever—why isn’t the mark more visible? The obvious answer to this rhetorical question being that the visible sign of our identity as Jesus-followers ought to be the witness of our faithful lives. But somehow the implicit challenge of the preacher’s words lingered. What story does my body tell about my belonging to Christ? `
Perhaps because of this, I looked upon the ink of my millennial children and their friends with curiosity and some envy. I imagined the tattoo I might get if I were to follow their example. Sometimes I sketched it out: it was a work of holy imagination to consider what I’d be willing to wear for a lifetime. I am an Episcopal priest, so I know what it is to wear religious symbols on my body. But I also know that can take vestments off, and stand unadorned in the community and before God. Was there a visible symbol of faith I’d be able to bear permanently? I wasn’t convinced.
A year ago I was far from familiar terrain, traveling in Scotland on my way to a Christian pilgrimage site, when a dear friend fell unexpectedly and very seriously ill. During the long periods of waiting—for news, for doctors, for hospital discharge—it suddenly occurred to me that it was time to get that tattoo I’d been imagining. With my friend’s very life in the balance, I had been confronted anew with my own mortality, and realized that there are indeed symbols I was ready—indeed needed—to carry on my own body through its inevitable death. The symbols I chose were names for God in Hebrew and Greek, the two traditions of sacred texts I stand in the midst of. They bracket my prayers, most especially when I celebrate the Holy Eucharist in the ancient raised-arms orans position.
I am still not entirely sure why I chose these two specific tattoos, but I like to think that they chose me in some way. I say this because they have a dynamism of their own, just like the sacred texts they are drawn from. I am in dialogue with them and I continue to learn from then, and from the way I connect with people through them.
I did eventually make it to Iona, the Scottish pilgrimage destination I’d been traveling toward when the reminder of mortality possibility of tattoos intervened. With itchy fresh ink on my forearms, I found myself sitting on the steps on the Iona Abbey listening to sacred music and absently rubbing my arms. It was Pentecost, the Christian feast that recalls the Holy Spirit’s gift of cross-cultural communication. Sitting next to me was a young European with whom I did not share a spoken language. But he saw my tattoos and smiled broadly. Raising his own sleeve, he showed me an identical (albeit much larger) λόγος tattoo. I smiled back and raised my left sleeve, revealing my יהוה tattoo. He smiled again and turned over his tattooed arm, showing me the same Hebrew letters on the other side. We nodded in recognition of our shared belonging to God, and returned to the song of praise.
