It hurt more than I thought it would. It was bearable enough though. After a few seconds of pain he would let up, gifting an immediate moment of relief before he’d continue again. I felt so out of place in that room- surrounded by people and images that years of conditioning taught me to judge so harshly. Topless women, bleeding hearts, demons and gods— Tattoos, they said, defiled the body.
As a child, I remember Sunday School teachers asking, “would you spray graffiti on the walls of God’s temple?”
“No!” I’d answer confidently. Of course I wouldn’t. In all honesty, I wouldn’t have sprayed graffiti on so much as the side of a dumpster, never mind a sacred building.
“Well,” the teacher would
explain, “God says your body is a temple. So if you’d never spray
graffiti on God’s house, you must also never put graffiti on your
body.”
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