Body Art

From Jes Kast-Keat

I was 18 when I got my first tattoo. I was sitting in my small Christian college dorm room and I knew that I was ready to get ink. I had known what I wanted since a mission trip in middle school where I first felt called to urban ministry. I gathered my friends and we drove to the parlor, making this middle school dream finally come true.

I remember the juxtaposition of my cheery pink sweater against the heavy metal music in the shop. My friends held my hand as the artist tenderly talked to me and as he tattooed a small cross and Jesus fish on my inner left ankle. That moment was painful, exhilarating, and it opened me up to the world of body art.

My parents come from an era where only a "certain kind" of person got a tattoo. When I came home and showed them my new piece of art they were hospitable, even though I know I was pushing the boundary of their idea of "what kind" of person gets a tattoo. I told them that this wouldn't be be my last tattoo. They loved that (sarcasm), but I was right; this college tattoo, conceived on a middle school mission trip, opened up the door for many more pieces of body art.

I look at tattoos as a living journal of my pilgrimage. Would I get a cross and Jesus fish today? No, it's too cliché. Yet was it important to me in my adolescent years? Yes. I don't regret that piece of art because it tells the story of where I was, who I was, and my process and progress along the way. Body art is a way of knowing who I am.

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Not Compatible with Life?

From Scott Hoezee

The past six days are to me a blur, and the ordinary way of remembering days past seems not to apply.  Anyone reading this who has passed through the days of death and parting from a loved one knows what I mean.  A week ago today my father-in-law, Rev. Isaac Apol, fell suddenly ill late in the evening.  Some hours later the doctors spied a blood clot in the main artery that supplies the gut region of the body and some hours after that the skilled vascular surgeon removed that clot and restored normal blood flow.   But it was too late--last Thursday the general surgeon checked on things one last time to confirm what he frankly suspected the evening before--the intestines had died from lack of blood for too long, and life for my dear father-in-law could not continue.  "It's just not compatible with life," the surgeon said.

My dad-in-law was 88--an age of sufficient decades and years that it tempts those who hear of his death to do what we all tend to do: we say or think, "Ohhh, wow, 88, hmmm" and what we mean by that is "Well, what did you expect?   That's an age at which people die so maybe we can blunt our sadness a bit."  I know I've thought that and so have resisted for some years asking too quickly "How old was your mom?" because I don't want to cash out even a little of people's deep grief.

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I'm not done with Boston

From Jeff Munroe

In the two-week rhythm of The 12, I last posted on the day of the Boston Marathon / bombings. And by the standards of our 24-hour news cycle, Boston is old news. We’ve moved on to more pressing things like the NFL draft and air traffic delays. But I am not ready to move on. I think of the victims, their families, or the witnesses who were not physically injured but now carry psychological wounds. They aren’t moving on. Me neither. I’m still processing.

I feel haunted by Boston, and armed with some “Boston questions,” I went to see Dr. Dennis Voskuil, former President and current Professor of Church History at Western Theological Seminary. Dennis did his PhD at Harvard and retains deep ties to the Boston community.

I went to Dennis because it bothers me that a sporting event was targeted. I “get” why the 9/11 terrorists chose the World Trade Center and Pentagon. But why the Boston Marathon? And beyond that, I went to Dennis for help understanding how to put all of this together theologically.

“I lived in Boston for five years,” Dennis told me, “and for the last four years I served a Methodist church about four blocks from the spot where the suspect was captured. I know the area -- I can imagine the streets where the shootout with the police took place -- I even know that gas station where the suspects were spotted on a security camera. That’s the part of Boston where I spent the most time – Watertown and Cambridge. Watertown isn’t an upscale suburb; it is middle class, full of row houses with lots of diversity. These are hearty, family-oriented people, very much part of the fabric of Boston life.”

What is Boston life?

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A Child's Song for the Lord's Day

This is the day when Christ arose
So early from the dead;
Why should I keep my eyelids closed,
And waste my hours in bed?

This is the day when Jesus broke
The powers of death and hell;
And shall I wear Satan's yoke,
And love my sins so well?

To-day with pleasure Christians meet,
To pray and hear thy Word;
And I would go with cheerful feet,
To learn thy will, O Lord.

I'll leave my sport to read and pray,
And so prepare for heaven;
Oh, may I love this blessed day
The best of all the seven!

Isaac Watts
Divine and Moral Songs from Children

Rev. Jeff Sajdak has served congregations in Iowa and Michigan, and is currently the Dean of Students at Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Spring: The Birds, the Bees, and Baseball

From Jason Lief

As I was driving with my daughter the other day the chit chat gave way to a more serious topic. "In school next we're going to talk about sex," she told me. "We're going to talk about girl parts and boy parts." I didn't know what to say. I mean, I'm used to joking around about things of a sexual nature with the "guys" while having a few beers on the deck, usually making fun of ourselves, but now this was serious stuff. I thought I'd see what she knew. "So what do you know about sex?" I asked her... experiencing a bit of deja vu. She paused, smiled, and then said, "Not much." Wait... what's with the smile? She knows more than she's letting on. She is eleven after all and I'd be naive to think that there weren't playground conversations at school. I decided that the car was not the most appropriate place to continue the conversation - especially with her fiver year old sister listening in the back. "Let's talk more about this later this weekend," I said, and we changed the topic. 

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