The Tats

So tons of peeps are all up in my face about my tats - so I thought I'd take a minute to express the uniqueness and distinctiveness of the flavour that spots my epidermis:

"Luther's Seal" or sometimes called "Luther's Rose". This was my first tattoo. I got it at Sid's Tattoo Parlor, Santa Ana, Ca - by Eric Jones, 2003. I got it on the inside of my left wrist with four of my broskies who all got the same thing - Isaiah, Beau, Jay, and Jacob. We all worked together at Red Hill Lutheran Church at the time. While floating around in Lake Shasta on a youth group trip, one of the students asked Beau if he would ever get a tattoo, Beau responded: "Maybe if I would if all these guys got one with me, like a group/brother thing" - or something like that. At that moment, we decided to all get Luther's Seal - 1. because Isaiah already had that tat on his mind, and 2. because we all worked at the Lutheran church together and had many good times.

The tat is very symbolic and personal to me because it tells the story of the gospel message in picture form. I have a version I tell that is slightly different than Luther's. Here is my story:

The black cross represents mankind's sin being put to death by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on a cross. It is inside a red heart which represents our new life in Christ - becoming a new creation in Him. It is inside of a white rose which represents our Justification (washed white as snow) in Christ. This is our positional standing as being justified before God on behalf of Christ's propitiation. I added purple and green inside the rose which was not originally in Luther's seal. I did it simply because I thought it gave the tat a little more depth - but traditionally, purple is used to represent the divinity of Christ (Jesus is God), and green is used to represent sanctification, or the growing process in the Christian life. Surrounding the rose is blue, which represents the waters of baptism - the outward expression and communal aspect of our regeneration. Finally, it is all encompassed by a gold ring, which represents eternity in heaven for believers after this life.

I have shared this message with everybody who asks about this tattoo - it is a great conversation starter and a good way to get people to think about the seriousness of the Christian faith and what is believed by Christians.

For those of you who are interested, here is Martin Luther's description of his seal:

In a July 8, 1530 letter to Lazarus Spengler, Luther interprets his seal:
Grace and peace from the Lord. As you desire to know whether my painted seal, which you sent to me, has hit the mark, I shall answer most amiably and tell you my original thoughts and reason about why my seal is a symbol of my theology. The first should be a black cross in a heart, which retains its natural color, so that I myself would be reminded that faith in the Crucified saves us. "For one who believes from the heart will be justified" (Rom. 10:10). Although it is indeed a black cross, which mortifies and which should also cause pain, it leaves the heart in its natural color. It does not corrupt nature, that is, it does not kill but keeps alive. "The just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1:17) but by faith in the crucified. Such a heart should stand in the middle of a white rose, to show that faith gives joy, comfort, and peace. In other words, it places the believer into a white, joyous rose, for this faith does not give peace and joy like the world gives (John 14:27). That is why the rose should be white and not red, for white is the color of the spirits and the angels (cf. Matt. 28:3; John 20:12). Such a rose should stand in a sky-blue field, symbolizing that such joy in spirit and faith is a beginning of the heavenly future joy, which begins already, but is grasped in hope, not yet revealed. And around this field is a golden ring, symbolizing that such blessedness in Heaven lasts forever and has no end. Such blessedness is exquisite, beyond all joy and goods, just as gold is the most valuable, most precious and best metal.This is my compendium theoligae [summary of theology]. I have wanted to show it to you in good friendship, hoping for your appreciation. May Christ, our beloved Lord, be with your spirit until the life hereafter. Amen.

"We are Cursed Men" - This was my second tattoo. I got it at Venus Fly Trap Tattoo in Edinburgh, Scotland - summer of 2006. I got it on the back of my right tricep. I wrote a blog on myspace explaining the significance and meaning of this tattoo after I got it - here is what I wrote:

The purple thistle is the national emblem of Scotland. It was made so because it saved the Scots from a secret invasion centuries ago. While the enemy was sneaking up in the middle of the night to carry out a slaughter on the sleeping Scots, a soldier unwittingly stepped on a thistle with his bare feet and let out a scream which woke the Scottish army. The Scots defeated their attackers and gave credit to the thistle. The thistle is one of my favorite flowers, and in my opinion, the most beautiful. At the first glance, one will notice the thorny characteristics of the thistle. Its stem is sharp with green thorns and its blossom boasts a magnificent display of soft purple spikes. The reason for its appearance is actually quite insightful, Biblically. The reality is that it is a cursed plant. Genesis 1 & 2 records the creation of all the heavens and the earth, the stars, the sky, soil, water, plants, animals, and mankind. Life in God's garden was perfect in every sense of the word. C.S. Lewis described it in 'a myth that may have been' by saying: "In perfect cyclic movement, being, power and joy descended from God to man in the form of gift and returned from man to God in the form of obedient love and ecstatic adoration: and in this sense, though not in all, man was then truly the son of God, the prototype of Christ, perfectly enacting in joy and ease of all the faculties and all the senses that filial self-surrender which Our Lord enacted in the agonies of the crucifixion. Yet, with the realization of the self, the temptation of the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, the opportunity to choose between God's will and selfish desire became to great for man, and he fell.' After the fall of man, God pronounced a curse on the serpent, He told the woman that her sorrow and pain in child bearing would be greatly multiplied, and He told the man that for his sake the ground would be cursed. In toil the man shall eat of it all the days of his life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for the man. In sweat and pain, man will till the ground until he returns to that very ground from whence he came. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return. This is why I say: We are cursed men. And yet, we are a Divine work of art, beautifully made in the image of the Everlasting Triune God. What better natural illustration of this than the thistle? Beautiful, yet cursed, in need of redemption. And there is the point of it- because we are cursed men, fallen from grace, insufficient to save our selves, we need a redeeming Savior to become a curse for us that we might be saved by His self-sacrificial, atoning, love. And that is the gospel. It doesn't make much sense to tell somebody that they need to be saved, unless they know what they need to be saved from. In life's case: from the curse that leads to everlasting death and destruction. Lewis explains in the Problem of Pain that "in the old days the Gospel immediately appeared as good news because it brought possible healing to men who knew that they were mortally ill. But all this has changed. Christianity now has to preach the diagnosis in itself very bad news before it can win a hearing for the cure." That is why I preach the curse, so that the gospel might make sense.

The Irish Shamrock has become popular in Christianity because it was the thing that St. Patrick used to preach the cross of Christ and the Trinity to the Irish. A little known fact is that St. Patrick was actually Scottish. He was kidnapped from Scotland and made a slave in Ireland, where he soon preached Christianity to the multitudes. I don't believe the shamrock accurately pictures the Trinity of the Godhead in that each separate petal does not entail the fullness of the flower, as each separate Person of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) entails the fullness of the Godhead i.e. each being fully God while eternally distinct in Person. But I do think that the shamrock can still be used as a conversation starter to speak of Christianity for its historical significance in the church.

That is why I have chosen a Scottish thistle intertwined with an Irish shamrock bearing a banner that reads We Are Cursed Men for my tattoo. Having an overwhelming Scottish theme, I chose to get the tattoo in Edinburgh, Scotland. It's my hope that in my conversations with those whom it attracts I might be able to explain, as C.S. Lewis did in the Problem of Pain on the subject of Divine Goodness: "We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the Divine love may rest well pleased. To ask that Gods love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us lovable."

"Sara (Bair)" - Here is my third tattoo. I got it at Sid's Tattoo Parlor, Santa Ana, Ca. by Sid - June, 2008. This tattoo is arguably on my 'lower back' - the picture may seem somewhat blurry - this is done on purpose as to not expose the embarrassing factors surrounding its location.

Here is the back story: I have known for quite sometime that whenever I got married, I would want to get my wife's name tattooed somewhere on me - so why the butt? This location carries some history. Let's take it back a notch to when my good friend Tim Johnson fell in love. Tim met a fancy little lady named Jenni - they had many adventures and got married. During their dating career - I happened to join them at Jenni's house to watch the Angels dominate the 2002 world series. When I stepped downstairs to get a drink, I saw the most beautiful specimen in all existence - Sara Bair - I was in love. The problem was that she was 17 years old and in high school at the time - so I chilled for a minute until all parties involved became legal. After much persistence, we too fell in love, shared many adventures, and became married.

Now, when Jenni and Tim got married - Jenni got Tim's name tattooed on her butt inside of a red heart. The next year, around Easter I believe, I accompanied Tim to Sid's as he returned the favor by getting Jenni's name tattooed on his butt inside a red heart with cross bones in the background. Being neighbors and in-laws, Sara and I share many a thing with Tim and Jenni - and I was surprised to find (on our wedding night, in the California Adventure Hotel at Disneyland) my name under a green clover tattooed on my newly wed wife's butt. After all of this, I new that my first tat for Sara must be on my butt -

I waited a year, and on our first anniversary, I had the opportunity to give her a surprise of her name, tatted on my butt, with a bear claw next to it - why a 'bear' claw -that's because I first fell in love with her as Sara Bair - and she also changed her middle name to 'Bair' after we got married - it was the best symbol I could come up with. I also had the name colored in with peach, which was our wedding color - Happy Anniversary Sara!- that thing is coming out every year to celebrate!

"Bailey" - this is my fourth tattoo. I got it on the inside of my left bicep at Sid's Tattoo Parlor, Santa Ana, Ca. by Sid -August, 2008.

My daughter, Bailey Bair Bridgman, was born on March 15th, 2008 at South Coast Medical Center in Laguna Beach, Ca. Sara and I had the pleasure of having an ocean view room on P.C.H. for her birth. Bailey was born at 4:27pm - and after the company and excitement had settled, I remember holding her in my arms and looking out of our window to a beautiful sunset on the Pacific Ocean. I remember my eyes tearing up as I thanked God for my beautiful daughter. She came as a surprise to me and Sara, and things were very hectic for our first year of marriage - but I remember feeling absolute peace and joy in that moment of holding Bailey - I never wanted that moment to end.

So for my tattoo design, I knew I definitely wanted Bailey's name with an ocean sunset backdrop. I chose to have her name colored in with green and orange - giving a shout out to the Irish heritage. Sid thought it would be a good idea to close in the water with a flower and some vines or leaves. I'm not sure what the original flower that he drew was, but I decided to go home and think of something more significant. I researched and later found that the birth flower for the month of March is the daffodil. So that is what I ended up wrapping up the tattoo with. I originally had her birth date on there, but Sara and I didn't like how it looked, so I thought the flower was a good enough symbol for marking her birth date. I love this tattoo.

My relationship with God and my family are the most important things to me. I realize that tattoos are still controversial among many Christians, but it is my desire to share the salvific message of the gospel (God's love for us - John 3:16) and my love and passion for my God and my family through these tattoos. In my culture and context of life - these tattoos have began many insightful and beneficial conversations - and they are a daily outward reminder to me of my inward realities - like stained glass windows in a cathedral, or photographs in a home. For some, I may have to exegete the Biblical passages concerning 'tattoo's in a sound manner so that the context may prove no violation of a commandment of God. For others, I may need to cover my tats as to not offend, or cause one to stumble. My point is not to argue for tats and prove people wrong with proper exegesis, but to explain why I have these tattoos. What other people choose to do and believe is their prerogative - my calling is to love God and love others - hopefully I can do that the right way.