What a funny subject to pick for my first real article. I thought I’d start by releasing a few poems, maybe some of my book, perhaps a theological deep dive on that thing that’s kept me up for the past month, but not a tattoo rabbit hole.
Also, just a heads up, I will not be addressing Leviticus 19:28 today. There’s just under a billion other theologians who can answer that question and I don’t really care to right now.
Nonetheless, I’m bored out of my mind as I prepare to start fundraising for my new job, and when I’m bored out of my mind I start thinking I should get a tattoo.
And this is where we meet Dr. Tiny.
Dr. Tiny (not a real doctor, but don’t tell him that) is this character in my head who checks in with me every once in a while to see how I’m doing. He’s always well-meaning and almost unbelievably rad.
The issue is, he gives the same prescription every time he visits.
“Okay, so uh, let’s take a look at these symptoms:
unemployment, too many Instagram reels, a tinge of insecurity, and once again a chronic dissatisfaction with the mundane …. I’ve got just the thing!”
Here we go again.
“You should get a tattoo!”
I knew it was coming, I don’t even know why I go to see Dr. Tiny anymore…
I can’t believe another tattoo would again be his prescription…
Well, once Tiny makes his diagnosis and basic prescription, we go to work for a solution.
He dusts off the cobwebs of that giant mental hamster wheel (oh, yeah, Dr. Tiny’s also a hamster btw) and we both set off to find out what kind of tattoo I should get and why.
After a few nights of feverish overthinking and redrawing, here are our 4 reasons why you (I) should get a tattoo. This list isn’t exhaustive and certainly doesn’t contain all of Dr. Tiny’s thoughts on the matter, but here goes:
Reason number one: They kill perfectionism.
Yep. I’m a few tattoos in and this has been my favorite fruit of having them. I have multiple images and words on my body that I would not get now considering some new developments in my life and person. I wouldn’t say that I regret them, but I’ve certainly thought, “Man, I wish I had talked to someone or waited a couple of years on that one.” My body is no longer a blank canvas (as if it ever was). I’ve made some decisions that I will have to look at in the mirror for the rest of my life.
What do I do about that? Do I hide them? Do I beat myself over the head with them while I try to fall asleep?
Truth be told, I’ve done both.
I’ve hidden this gnarly skeleton tattoo on my left forearm around some older people at Church because I was scared that they wouldn’t take me as a serious follower of Jesus.
I’ve shamed myself more times than I’d like to admit for the Hebrew word “hesed” tattooed on my wrist, knowing that it would likely offend any Muslim or Hasidic Jew that I go to shake hands with.
These aren’t small things; these are images on my body that will immediately disqualify or significantly hinder my relational ability with some people. For someone who wants to share the love of God through the gospel of Jesus with all kinds of people, that sucks.
So again, what do I do about that?
Are my tattoos sin?
No. While tattoos, like everything else, can be a sin depending on what you get, why you get it, and in what context, I don’t think my tattoos are sinful.
While yours don’t need to be, all of mine represent ideas, things, or people of inestimable value to me. Things like the Holy Bible, the great commission, the mortification of sin, the love of God, and God Himself are all represented in my tattoos. I didn’t make unwise financial decisions (this is debatable if you talk to my Mom) in order to get them, and I genuinely got them as visual reminders to spur me on to love and good works.
However, even though they aren’t sinful, I don’t treat lightly the implications that my decisions come with. I’ve rather come to accept them with their full weight.
I accept that I’ve made imperfect decisions (even scarier, imperfect decisions that other people can see), and I keep moving. I accept that this life is a vapor, I trust that God is big enough to work with them, and I smile knowing that it’s insignificant in the grand scheme of eternity. I’m imperfect; I need to get over it.
This point comes with a caveat:
You may very well have a tattoo you don’t like and continue to keep your perfectionism, but it will cripple you. If you don’t release yourself to being less than perfect in and of yourself, especially physically, then your tattoo and likely a million other imperfections will ruthlessly kill your happiness. The worst kind too, a mental death by paper cut.
Sure, you may have an actually really bad or hateful tattoo that needs a cover-up or removal, but for the majority of us, we’re just going to have to deal with having a saggy tattoo or one that didn’t heal as well that’s on us “forever,” and that’s okay.
Reason number two: They’re not novel.
Humans have been getting tattoos for thousands of years for various reasons. Some medicinal, some religious, some for clout, but there’s a whole lot of dead people with a whole lot of sick tats in the ground. You may be the first person in your family to get a tattoo, but in the story of the human race, your getting a tattoo isn’t as wild as you think.
“Well, yeah, okay man. But everybody in the past who got tattoos was a sailor, criminal, or heathen; so my cross tattoo is actually pretty new considering the history of it.”
Wrong again. It was actually incredibly popular to get tattoos of Christian depictions starting in the Middle Ages. Take Count Googenboogenheim for example (he’s probably not real, but I would love to see what came up if you googled him). Our beloved count, bored to death in his castle with a whole lot of money to burn, would make his way to Jerusalem on pilgrimage, and as a way to remember his travels, he’d get a half-sleeve that would look something like this:
An image of the tattoos of German pilgrim Ratge Stubbe from a 1669 trip showing a version of the Arms of Jerusalem tattoo
“The Goog,” as we shall now call him, would then make his way back to England and happily roll up his sleeve after Sunday service. His grin would grow as he watched the shock wash over his homeboys and his church crush at the fresh ink.
This practice of tattooing among the upper classes of Europe continued off and on until after the Victorian era, when common folk began getting tattoos to look like the rich folk.
The rich obviously stopped getting tattoos, and then subsequently the only ones left to carry tattoo culture in the western world were thugs and ruffians, and so the rich folk hated tattoos.
Funny, huh? Your grandma’s hatred of that rad American Traditional sleeve you just earned is actually the product of centuries of socioeconomic development. Pretty neat I’d say.
So, before you head to Pinterest to find your next tattoo, don’t freak out about thinking that what you’re doing is totally new. Future generations are not going to look back in disdain on the trend of millennials getting a mustache on their inner finger; it’s just another drop in the ocean of tattooing across human history. This point may be a buzzkill for some of you who are only getting a tattoo because you think it’s so punk and counter-culture, but I figure you should know the facts before lashing out in youthful rebellion. For others, this hopefully feels like a breath of fresh air. It’s not that deep; the non-novelty of tattooing has actually helped me a lot in removing the stigma in my mind that I’m breaking some hidden rule.
Reason number three: They are punk.
Gotcha. You thought I was just going to kill all the fun, huh? Nope, tattoos are still punk.
It’s punk to make a decision that you have to stick with for the rest of your life. It’s punk to get married, it’s punk to commit to raising kids, it’s punk to be a solid, unwavering friend. Committing to doing good things that cost you is the punkest thing you can do, because it shows you’re a person who won’t quit or lie down when things get hard.
Most people don’t get tattoos because they may not like them as much down the line. Now, that’s a good reason not to get a tattoo, but it’s not necessarily a good rule to live your life by. If you’re married, you’ve had moments where you’re less excited to be married than when you first got engaged. If you’ve committed to having or adopting kids, you’ve DEFINITELY had moments where you’ve considered what made you want to have them in the first place. Does your changing feeling of satisfaction mean that your marriage or kids were bad decisions? No. Of course not. If you married well and committed to being a godly parent, then you made a good decision. Your feelings will never change that. It just means you’ve committed to something costly, and that’s even better.
Tattoos are a microcosm of this kind of commitment we desire in life. Tattoos have taught me how to wake up with a decision I made a few years back, be less than stoked with it, and just go about my day knowing I got it for a reason and that tomorrow I’ll probably wake up and feel different. This is described by C. S. Lewis as “the law of undulation,” that our feelings about certain things constantly ebb and flow and that it’s normal. The trick is, what are you going to do as your feelings toss to and fro? Are you going to stop committing to good things because they may not feel as nice as the day you start them? Are you going to let your feelings determine your commitment?
I’m not.
I’ll choose the punk route, I’m going to practice making (good) decisions that will cost me something, and then I’m going to stick to them. I’m going to marry the girl of my dreams, commit to raising kids, and be a worthwhile friend. Tattoos are just smaller, physical reminders that make these kinds of decisions a little bit easier.
Reason number four: You have to earn them.
With all of the numbing creams and stuff nowadays, this one is becoming less and less prevalent, but I LOVE this final reason. You have to earn your tattoo, there’s no way around it.
You have to sit there as a person drives an oscillating needle(s) into your skin while your nervous system tweaks and you think “oh, what have I done.” Moreover, if you’re like me, you’re getting tattooed by an old head who’s been getting them since he was 8 years old while he rolled cigarettes in the other hand. He may be the nicest dude in the world, but I’m not tapping out. No way am I going to let the cool tattoo man down, I’m going to listen to the screamy screams playing on the shop speakers and do my best to suck it up.
Oh, and for those people who say tattoos don’t hurt, look very closely at their tattoos. I say look very closely because that’s probably what you’ll have to do; they’re often not big enough to hurt significantly. If you want to get a small one then you may not think they hurt all that bad too, but just know there is an “oh crap” point where you have to start reacting to the pain thoughtfully with self-control.
They don’t get any easier either. I sat for 6.5 hours for my first tattoo and maybe 4 hours for my last one, and it felt like the 4-hour tattoo hurt more. You gotta love that.
Okay, tattoos hurt. What’s the big deal?
The big deal is that I don’t think we really earn things anymore. We are a people of efficiency, of getting what we want as fast and easily as possible. Tattooing technology hasn’t gotten the memo, however, and you still have to sit through a painful six-hour session if you want a six-hour-sized tattoo.
I usually have time in the chair where I think, “man, this is great. I made a decision to get this tattoo, and if I stop now because of the pain it’s going to look like absolute buttcheeks.” My only real option to get what I want is to sit through the pain, whatever it takes, and trust the artist to take care of me in the process (that’ll preach). It’s a striking place of clarity, and I think this is what people get addicted to when they say they’re addicted to tattoos. It’s raw, real, and painful with purpose, things I think we all desire in this life.
Now, do you need to go get a tattoo in order to become who you want to be? No, but here are some of the things that I’ve loved about having them and getting them. I hope you can at least appreciate my thoughts before you wonder from afar what made me want to throw my life away as a ruffian youth.
While getting tattoos isn’t the solution for my problems with perfectionism, desire for novelty, commitment issues, or struggle with immediate gratification, it is a small practice in my life that has helped me become more of who I want to be. More relaxed with the small things, more self-forgetful, more committed, and more steadfast; I can confidently say I’ve grown deeper into these things since getting tatted.
These are just four reasons why I’ll be getting another tattoo, and maybe why you should too.
this post is knives. tattoos are cool. Christianity is punk rock.
Though I will remain uninked (I guess you never know), I can get behind your reasons and think they’re good. I kind of view our lives on earth as temporary tattoos. We make a mark , but it fades sooner after we’re gone than we’d like to think. But we’re permanent where it counts - graven on His hands. Tattooed for eternity. Talk about a painfully earned, permanent commitment.