It felt like I was holding two small ponds, one in each hand, and as I looked down at the floor underneath the chair I was sitting, I saw two bodies of water forming from the dripping springs that were my hands above. As the artist continued to drive a needle into my wrists, my friend Cole sat next to me looking at the puddles of sweat forming under the both of us, and glancing at me, informed me that he would grab some paper towels.
Cole and I were lifeguards together at a local indoor pool, and he was one of those friends who was always up for anything. When I asked him to tag along with me to go get my first tattoos, he was all in. This was great because I knew I didn’t want to go by myself, and I would have someone to listen to angsty screamo music with the entire way there.
Growing up, I never thought that I would be someone who would get tattoos. Tattoos were only for people who rode motorcycles, played professional sports or were in rock bands. As a boy in small-town Oklahoma, my body was a temple, and I was terrified of needles, so getting a permanent marking on my skin was never something that crossed my mind. But then again, growing up never goes as planned, does it?
It’s funny how sometimes we get ideas to do things from the least expected places. I got the idea for my first tattoo sitting in a Sunday school class my junior year of high school.
We were watching a video series by, Rob Bell. In this particular video, he was planting two trees - one on each side of him. At the end of the video he stood between them and explained how each tree represented the Tree of Life found in Genesis and Revelation. The tree in Genesis representing the beginning of time, and the tree in Revelation was representing the end of time. That’s when it hit me: symbolism says a lot.
We live in funny world. It’s a world that frowns upon talking about religion, politics and things that actually matter, but adores talking about the weather, sports and neighborhood gossip. Which makes sense to an extent. The deeper the discussed issue, the more opportunity there is for disagreement. It’s easy to talk about things we know we can all agree on.
Looking back, I think the mindset of ignoring life’s ‘life-changing’ topics was engrained into us at an early age. The biggest cartoons were always filled with sticks of dynamite and falling anvils, not real-life problems that we may actually have to face one day. To talk about anything real sends up red flags. But that’s half the battle. The real war starts when we try to pull down those flags and pursue genuine knowledge of our neighbors.
-Cliff
Cliff’s Note: Symbolism speaks in ways we can’t.