Body Language

What an interesting sermon for Mother’s Day.

For the most part, absolutely beautiful: the priest talked about how it’s the women of the parish who kept it going and make it what it is – a fact that, in my experience, is universally true. So yay women! He talked about how women are the ones who pass on the faith to their children, teaching them a love of God, how to spend their time and money, how to pray to God and give thanks to Him, how to live a Christian life in a variety of ways.

Ways like not letting their children get piercings through their nose or through their ears (read: lots of piercings) or tattoos, because Leviticus clearly says we’re not supposed to do that, and anyway our body is a temple to the Holy Spirit.

*horror and disbelief*

I’m pretty sure we’ve rejected most of the rules in Leviticus – like not trimming the corners of our beards or whatever – but the ones we keep sure are revealing about who we are.

I admit that this hit a nerve. For instance: I have 10 piercings, and I have had 2 others which are removed, one of which was a facial piercing. I have 6 tattoos, and am currently planning a 7th. So yes, this was a little bit of a...disconcerting twist for me.

Not that I haven’t asked the question myself at times. Obviously I don’t think that tattoos are ‘unlawful,’ mostly because I read Leviticus differently, with a generous helping of also believing that tattooing is not a form of self-harm or mutilation. However, even if all things are lawful, not all things build up. When I first embarked on my piercing-and-tattooing odyssey, I did ask God about it. (well, maybe not right away. I had at least one tattoo and a few piercings before I thought to question my actions) God never said anything about it as far as I can tell, which may not actually be that far.

What the experience and meaning of tattoos are to me personally in my life is completely unrelated to this and, since it’s irrelevant, I’ll leave it aside. If anyone is actually interested in this (which I doubt) drop me a line and I’ll carry on about it in my usual excessive digressional fashion.

The fact is, I’m not sure whether they build up or not. My belief that they just might could be an after-the-fact self-justification, and it certainly had no actual bearing on my decision(s). I did experience some interesting things in my life because of it. For one thing, I would tell people I am a Christian and they would say things like “But you don’t LOOK like a Christian.” What does a Christian look like, anyway? From people’s reactions I sometimes think Christians are supposed to look kind of like municipal librarians with a penchant for wearing beige and lots of cardigans. If this is the case, I don’t know many ‘Christians.’

I’ve had some interesting conversations with disaffected youth in my ex-parish, kids who thought that because they wanted to dress a certain way or listen to certain music this meant they were not supposed to be Christian, or that they weren’t Christian, or somehow defective. So kids hitting puberty for some reason were attracted by my quirkiness, and I am blessed to have been able to sponsor two of them for Confirmation. I think, sometimes, I might have been like a breath of fresh air just because I was young and energetic and unafraid of myself and my beliefs. I hope that me in my early twenties going to church dressed up (essentially) as a boy with my hair cut short like a boy and dyed blue was in some way helpful to others.

(Interestingly, no one ever said anything about my weird boy jeans and checkered punk pants and silver jewelry and psychedelic hair. But wear a mini skirt or a top with little straps and all hell breaks loose.)

Back on topic: I think in some ways it might have built up by allowing people to see that being Christian does not mean conforming to librarian standards or giving up drums. That you should never give up your faith because somehow you feel like you don’t belong. That the facets of your life, no matter how disparate or seemingly at odds, can all be integrated within God’s grace – a grace that allows you to love God and to embrace Him even while you’re wearing stiletto hooker boots and ranting about women’s reproductive rights while planning to go out to a death metal concert with your unconventional date.

On the other hand, the places where it might have built up the most seem to have been largely unaffected. This is the part not where outsiders say you don’t look like a Christian, or where you say it, or where you believe that you’re not a real or good Christian, but where the people in church say it to you. There is an opportunity here to realize that people who look different or live different kinds of lives are Christian just as much as you are, no more and no less. I think at my ex-parish I might have accomplished this somewhat, mostly because they’d known me for years and, even though I had weird hair, I was still the same person. But clearly the presence of ‘freaks’ like me in the larger society and its churches does not readily translate into tolerance, or even understanding. I see it when someone says, with no hesitation, doubt or nuance, that tattooing and piercing (or whatever else) is unequivocally wrong and not the Christian way.

This makes me sad. I feel like, as a church, our judgment with no attempt to understand pushes people away and makes them not want to become Christian or not to be Christian anymore. We do this on so many issues and from all sides. I am not immune. And as much as I want to say you shouldn’t switch churches and go find (or build) one that’s sympathetic to your expression of your humanity, and that you should never allow anyone to force you out of a community, the fact is that sometimes that is the only way to survive.

And then this ghettoizes the churches. The ‘conservative’ parishes full of people who think one way and are never confronted with the other, and the ‘liberal’ parishes full of people who think one way and are never confronted with the other. No one has to listen to anyone, and we can all go about our safe little comfortable lives believing that we’re right and they’re wrong and we’re the only ones expressing any kind of truth. We never have to squirm in our pews and acknowledge that someone with a completely opposite view is just as much a Christian as we are, and that we’re all speaking out of a love for God – or, at least, that we’re trying to.

But how can we call it loving God, Whom we have never seen, if we do not love our freakish or uptight brothers and sisters, whom we have?