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Monday, August 19, 2013

Looking at tattoos through Theology of the Body

Emily Stimpson has a thought-provoking piece on tattoos, through the lens of Theology of the Body.

3. Last but not least, I have no desire for tattoos because I’m more interested in seeing what God does with my body than I am in seeing what some tattoo artist can do with it.

It goes back to that starting principle: The body expresses the person.

Emily today isn’t the same as Emily 10 years ago. Not on the inside and not on the outside. I have scars now that weren’t there in 2003. I also have lines, wrinkles, and (approximately) three gray hairs. But there’s also a softness to me that wasn’t there a decade ago. There’s more peace, more confidence, and more love. That somehow shows up too. It’s written on my face as much as the years and the pain are.

That’s the story I’m interested in my body telling. And God’s way, as opposed to mine, is the way I’m interested in telling it. Life—joy and suffering, peace and pain, sickness and health, what I love and what I hate, what I do and what I don’t do—will be tattooing my body according to God’s design for as long as I walk this earth. Then, by His grace, when I get my resurrected body in Heaven, those “tattoos” will shine like the sun.

Why mess with that?

Be sure to read the whole piece here.

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