This weekend I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen for quite some time. He is one of my more gregarious friends, someone you can always count on to be wearing colorful clothes, often things that speak volumes about his values, his creativity. He is a musician, an artist, a teacher, an activist, a composer….the list goes on and on. Over his lifetime he has almost always been a part of a church. He has led liturgy, written music and traveled the country helping people express their faith.

One of his first sentences in our conversation was "I don’t really go to church anymore. I guess I’ve lost my faith." It was not really a confession, only a statement of where he is right now on his life’s journey. I felt honored that he felt safe to say those words to me. We talked and caught up a bit. In the course of what was turning out to be a very warm morning, he removed the long sleeves of his jacket to expose his arms….now filled with tattoos that I’d never seen before. They were brilliant colors, red, yellow, deep blue and paler shades, a warm brown and rich orange. I asked about these new body decorations. And he began to tell me their story.

He said he wanted to illustrate, in a permanent way, his connection with the four elements…Earth, Wind, Water, Fire. His left bicep held the Earth, a yin-yang symbol swirled where planets often are, stars and water  floated all around. This Earth sat upon a large grape leaf and the vines and grapes of the leaf held the Earth like a nest. The leaf represented his father, a grape farmer whose 50 year old vines now grow in my friend’s back yard.  His right arm displayed Water cascading down, snaking from stream into Celtic knots that moved toward shells that circled his wrist. These shells represented the strong women in his life and the tattoo had replaced a bracelet he had worn in memory of a young niece who had taken her life. He now wears her memory and that of other women who have shaped his journey permanently painted on his right wrist. A Fire breathing dragon encircled his lower left arm. This was a symbol of strength, a connection with the East and one he and his wife agreed represented their marriage and commitment to one another. He was still waiting for the addition of the tattoo that would represent his Mother and her influence. He talked for quite some time of all the thought, commitment, creativity that had gone into the palate of his arms.

When he was finished I could only say one thing:"It seems to me you have not lost your faith. You are wearing it." He smiled and nodded his agreement. In his search for a way to express his connection with what he experiences as the Holy, he has chosen to affirm that understanding by painting it with permanence on his arms. While the faith tradition of his youth and early adulthood no longer seems helpful in expressing his faith, he continues to seek to be true to the movement of the Divine in his life.

I am not a tattoo person. I do not like pain. I can barely stand to pluck my eyebrows. But as I listened to my friend express his unconventional faith, his deep connection with the Sacred in his life, I wondered…….what would my faith tattoos look like? What would yours?

"All that is of earth returns to earth, and what is from above returns above…..but good faith will last forever." Sirach 40:11-12