A few months ago, my closest brothers and I gathered over fine ale (Gulden Draak, Anchor Liberty, and Stella Artois [if only for Spring's sake]) and discussed permanently pressing ink into our skin something that embodies both our relationship as four-in-one as well as our shared Values which we know is responsible for the Unity we’ve experienced.
Below is one of the early versions, and following the image is some explanation which in text expresses the depth of the εἰκών.
Notice there are four major colored elements which move across the piece. Each represents each of us as individuals, and them together is Us.
The colors of the four pieces also represent two things, both Christologically and Pneumatologically — that it is the Blood of Christ from which we drink and it is he Holy Spirit which binds us and powers us and propels us as One, for and AS the Missio Dei.
[There is much more to be said about each of these ideas, but for brevity's sake I will be .. brief.]
All white space in the piece represents the Triune God, whose story is much larger than our own, though he does choose in spite of our wickedness and fallenness to call us, to accept us, to weave us together in love, and to redeem us.
Fleshing that out even more specifically, then, the three pieces of negative space in between the four colored elements represent the Trinity — embodying the idea that it is the Triune Godhead — Father, Son, and Spirit which not only provides the model for community, but coheres it and sustains it and brings it unto completion. And at the center of this weaved Commonality is God.
As the four colored elements which represent each man in the collective extend downward, it is the Trinity who weaves us together in the love of the Holy Spirit. It is not a static weaving, but a dynamic, missional motion unto the fullness of time. This is represented by the movement to the right in the upper sector of the piece.
Finally, the piece serves as a redefintion of Time. That Time is not defined by moments that pile on top of the other on some Line, but that Time is provided framework in this way: Creation / Fall / Re-Creation. The line is to say that though we understand events to be one-after-the-other, that Time is really a large Narrative as told by the Trinity, and in this, some-odd-how, in some-strange-way, we are written in as characters. Characters which are given meaning and purpose, while otherwise hopeless and self-full.
And the final type element in the southern region of the piece embodies the Resurrection life, which we now share as a result of of the Pre-existence, Birth, Life, Ministry, Death, Burial, Rising, Ascension, and Return of the Son of God:
He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.
Come & see the place where he lay.
The agent of Creation is too the agent of Re-Creation. Mara Natha. Maran Atha.
for some reason your blog alerts arrive in my inbox while I am sleeping – so I just read this. I’m not most supportive of tattoos but not bc I don’t like them. I find it hard to think I could ink on something I won’t later not believe, care about, or questio why I did so. . . but I had no hesitation for this one. Original, deep, and a story to tell symbolizing true friends. what real friendship is bound by. so gewd shep!
Well-played. Where’ll it go?
[...] is the technical process and how the theological elements were fleshed throughout the process, and not necessarily in a vision of the final [...]