Body Art

The other day I sat with my book group in a coffee shop in central Phoenix. We had gotten done talking about the book we had read this month, Madonnas of Leningrad, and were reviewing all the books out there that we could read. One of the members of the group mentioned a book she had read set in China that along with a story she really enjoyed gave a great historical look at tattooing in China.

The description of the book led to a little chat about tattooing in general. One woman said that her children didn't get tattoos because they could not be buried in the Jewish cemetery if they had marks on their bodies. Another member talked about her feelings on tattoos. They were not particularly positive.

Tattoos still cause a buz in certain crowds... old prejudices die hard and it is difficult for some to see how the tattooed lady will fit into society. I thought about the man I met many years ago who had tattoos from his wrists to his shoulders, from his hips to his knees, and one blue-black line around the third finger of his left hand. I steered clear of him. The tattoos put me off. But then I found out he was witty and smart. He had a PHD in anthropology from a Jesuit University. He had been Dean of Students at one of the local community colleges. When he came out of the navy he had opened up a tattoo parlor near the beach in Ventura. He told me you could make a lot of money in tattoos.

I told them of my son-in-law's tattooed arms that give him the look of a tall skinny Maori warrior. I told them about my youngest child, the wild one, getting a tattoo on her foot the day she turned eighteen and how I wanted to go into the bathroom and throw up when I saw it. I told them about my oldest daughter... the sensible one... who has a small tattoo on her hip., and that the first time I saw it I said, "you have a tattoo" and she replied as she jerked her jeans a bit higher, "no I don't!"

I used to hate tattoos. I had all kinds of opinions about the kind of people who would get tattoos. But then these big gentle incredibly kind boys began to show up at my house... and they had holes in their bodies and hardware in places it did not belong, and artwork dancing up and down their arms and legs. I still worried about the consequences of having all these decorations, but I knew I loved them anyway.

Then a couple years ago, my friend Miriam, needed a colonoscapy. Miriam sat next to me in choir. She was older, probably late seventies, the feistiest women I had ever met, and she was alone. I told her I would stay with her and help her the night before. A colonoscopy is a snap, but the prep really sucks. So after a bit of convincing, she agreed to let me come be with her.

The prep for a colonoscopy requires that you fast for twenty-four hours before you begin, then you need to drink a gallon of what amounts to flavored salt water to clean out whatever else is left in your system. To say the least, near the end of the prep, you cannot leave the throne room or the throne. Because the drink is cold, and you are pouring it in so regularly, you become cold. So there you are, shivering cold, sitting on the toilet, fearful of moving off it for any reason. It is tough at fifty, but when you are in your mid seventies and weigh less than one hundred pounds, you just should not be alone until you are safely tucked into bed.

And so, with Miriam, I was the person who delivered the glass of elixir every twenty minutes. She sat and I walked from the kitchen to the bathroom, talking and listening, being there with her, in what would have been too big an ordeal to do on her own. Finally she was done. Everything she was supposed to drink, she had. Everything that was supposed to come out, had. And so, still sitting on the toilet, I began to help her into a clean nightgown and get her ready for bed. And that is when I saw it.

A tattoo. A big red, kissing lips tattoo right there on her wrinkly, saggy seventy-plus ass... and I said, "My God, what the hell is that?" And Miriam said those are "kiss my ass" lips. She and her girl friend had both had kissing lips tattooed on their rumps for their seventy-fifth birthdays.

What fun. What a great lesson for me. What a wonderful lesson for a person like me who tends to hear the voices of propriety blasting in her ears... a person, who is way too full of "shoulds." Miriam had the ability to laugh. She remained young regardless of the years that crept up on her.

A tattoo. What is it really? Art, sometimes for arts sake, sometimes to make some kind of statement, and sometimes art that was just for the audacious fun of it.

I doubt I will be getting one any time soon, but I have decided to be open to the possibility.

Baptism and some thoughts on the Trinity

I was raised Missouri Synod Lutheran. Now for many of you this will mean nothing, but those of you familiar with MSL, you will understand that the Triune God is a very big deal.

While I sat, every Saturday for two years in confirmation class, Pastor Kirchner would drone on and on that the Triune God was three Gods in One. As I recall, this is the only way he ever explained it. As Missouri Synod Lutherans, our job was to accept, never to question. But question I did. I just didn't get it. It was presented in such a concrete way and to me it was such a ephemeral idea I just couldn't get my mind around it.

For twenty-five more years I would do a tap dance around my belief/understanding of the Triune God and much of the other dogma that is indicative of the conservative branch of the Lutheran church. But then, as I entered my forties I began to adjust my belief system to what suited me. I began to personalize, customize what I believed. And in doing this I have been able to pull into a deeper relationship with the divine... the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

So today, while babysitting my grandsons, we found ourselves sitting under a palo verde tree, popping the seeds out of the seed pods on the ground and trying to cool off in the relative shade the tree offered. I had brought water for myself and to share with the boys and after they both had taken a drink I noticed how flushed the little guy's face was. Now Phoenix has very low humidity, so if you get wet the water evaporates very fast. As water evaporates it lowers the temperature. The faster it evaporates the more it cools.

I poured a little water into my hand and rubbed it on Pete's head, then I rubbed some on William's. I wanted to cool them down, but as I looked at their wet hair I was reminded of baptism. So a few minutes later, when I put water on Pete's head again, I said, "I baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." Then I did William.

William asked me, "Is da 'oly 'pirit a bad guy, Ama?" ... he has become quite concerned about gad guys lately... and I told him no, the Holy Spirit was that part of God that gets inside us and holds us close so we don't have to be scared.

In the next half hour, I baptised the boys two or three more times, then each one of them baptised me. Each time we said the blessing. Each time we talked some more about the Holy Spirit and asked that what we did in love and trust would be blessed.

Pastor Kirchner would not have approved of what I did. His Triune God was not a flexible deity. He wouldn't have thought I had the authority to do such a thing and would have thought that my doing it was blasphemy. But this is what I know. God was there under the tree with us and He heard me call.

Those boys will be baptised again when they are older. They will be baptised by a minister who does everything by the rule... and it will be good... but what the three of us did today was good, too. God doesn't require fancy rules and ritual, Jesus came to tell us that. And the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside and around us as the wind, or as a flame, or with the refreshing water whether we ask for his presence or not.

I baptised my grandsons today and they baptised me... and something about that was good and holy and precious.

Once Upon A Time

When I was eight years old my third grade teacher told my mom she needed to take me to the library so I could check out books to read at home. I was what she called a "slow reader", and she knew this was the best way to build my speed and comprehension. And so, because of that wonderful teacher, my mom began to see my reading as something I needed to do rather than a way to lay around and do nothing.

I have learned I love to read. I love the stories. I love the narrator voice, especially if it is done well. I love the rhythm some authors bring to their writing. The books of my life have brought me to places, introduced me to characters I would never have known. They have taught me great truths and shown me that something does not have to be factual to be true. Books, and the stories I have found in them have opened the world to me, and for that I am thankful.

It is not surprising then, that I have come to see story, my story-your story, as a way to tell our own personal truths. Our stories, as we tell them, might not be strictly factual, but if we speak from our hearts, our stories always tell what is true. I think it is in telling our story, to our journal, to another person, that we allow our stories validation. We allow them to breathe. We gift them with a spaciousness that allows the spirit of God to enter.

I have kept a journal off and on since college, and have them all. The ones from my college years are full of the passion and drama and make me shudder just a bit with embarrassment when I read them. I have journal entries from early on in my single-mother years, journals packed with self doubt and longings. And I have the many journals of the last twelve years or so. The years when my daughters were growing up and out of the house. The journals where my relationship to God was growing into something that breathed life into my days. These journals are testaments to my development. When I read back in them, even the ones from college, I am aware of the many places the Spirt has intervened in my life.

When I listen to my story, or yours; when I read a Don DeLillo book or a children's classic like Peter Pan; when I read the books of the Bible, I am always looking for the same thing. I am looking for the truth in it. I am looking for that movement of the Spirit that nudges me into seeing what part of these stories is true for me. I am no longer too concerned with what is factual, what can be strictly verified.

This lack of consideration for fact makes some people I know uncomfortable. But I I believe it is in the broken parts of the stories... it is in the stumbles and mistakes... it is in our weakest moment when we are most vulnerable... that we release our spirit to the universe and allow the Spirit of God an entrance into our lives.

It is my hope that this blog will be a place of story. A place where truth slips through the cracks of my life.