Well, I have capitulated to the trend and gotten myself a tattoo. I know they’re becoming so common as to be passe’, but I enjoyed the process nevertheless.
If you haven’t guessed, it’s a rendering of Mary (the mother). I’m well aware that the image is typically Western, and bears no resemblance to a first century Middle Eastern Jewish woman. But my interest is symbolic. For me, Mary is a potent religious symbol, provided she is not depicted with her eyes downcast in submission (a woman’s traditional religious role), but instead stares proudly at us, eye to eye. As patriarchy and pain in childbirth was the female curse in the Eden, so is it significant that that it is a woman who births the one intended to liberate us from the curse of oppressive power in all its manifestations.
I’m not sure whether men can be feminists, but at the least I am an ally; and feminism (especially feminist theology) has shaped my thinking. Indeed, it’s feminism that asked me to think critically about what it is to be a man, and what it is not. I’ve learned at least that I don’t need to be a stoic warrior, that vulnerability and strength can go hand-in-hand, and that the longing for beauty transcends gender.
“I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys” is a citation from Song of Songs 2:1. It is the female lover’s self-description that in Christian tradition has, strangely but also strikingly, been taken up as a symbol of Christ. And the dove, obviously, represents the Spirit. So if we allow Mother Mary to point to the Father, the tattoo hints at the Christian Trinity, without the all too common reified masculinity.
None of this explains, though, why I got myself inked. No doubt the answer is the same as it is for anyone; vanity. I am used to being stared at – that goes hand-in-hand with disability and wheelchairs – but since my accident I have fallen in hate with my body. While I had been tall, fit, and healthy (yes, I know, vanity), I’m now a potbellied hunchback with a disobedient lump of meat for a body. So doing something artistic with that lump of meat reaches toward self acceptance. It’s my way of saying, “hey, look at this, there is something on my body that is actually worth staring at.”
My thanks to Jin O at kaleidoscope tattoo for her artistry and friendship.