Tit for Tat

We've had some questions about my opinions on tattoos. I am happy to further clarify.

Since the body is a temple, couldn't a tattoo be considered decoration as well? Cathedrals have their stained glass windows and I have my cross tattoo...

I'm not sure how you can compare burning ink into your flesh with a stained glass work of art. Perhaps some visual aids.




























I rest my case.
























And...

I disagree and agree with you sister. I agree our bodies are temples of the spirit. I agree that we need to be careful what we put on it, or in it, as a holy place. To go extremist for a moment though- why do we cover this temple? why aren't we naked, I know that is another can of worms on sin and mortality.


You haven't opened the sin and mortality can of worms, so much as you've opened the Adam and Eve and morality can of worms (unless you meant to say 'morality' and had an actual Freudian slip).

The can of worms part is good news, to me at least. As a Catholic you don't have to take the story of Adam and Eve literally. You don't have to believe that God made one man and one woman in a garden and there was a talking snake and then they had two children who were both boys and the one of the boys (the murderer) went off to live in another town somehow populated with all the girls Eve had while we weren't looking. And everyone had to marry their sisters and first cousins for a while there.

You can if you want to.

Yes, except for a small bump in the road named Galileo, the Church doesn't run screaming from science. You may believe in the theory of evolution if you like. Not a problem.

You do however have to believe that the story of Adam and Eve is true.

Calm down.

The story. Not the events.

How does that work? Everything in the story is true. Some of the things didn't happen.

Just like in a movie, a 'bio-pic' (I do live close to Hollywood, I know the 'lingo') for example. In the movie "The Miracle Worker", little Helen Keller lives like and animal and fights her teacher tooth and nail until the big break through moment at the well when she realizes that the signs the teacher is making in her hand mean something. A powerful moment, to be sure.

To this day, when I've been talking myself blue trying to explain something that is bouncing off a nearby thick head and I finally break through the noggin into the brain, in my own brain I scream, "Mrs. Keller! She knows!"

But that "well" moment never happened. If you read the actual autobiography of Helen Keller you'll find she was hungry for knowledge and knew right away the teacher was there to help her. Helen loved Teacher from the moment she arrived on the plantation.

Was there a little girl named Helen Keller who couldn't hear, see or speak, who struggled to understand what her beloved teacher meant with motions of her hands? Yes. The story is true. Some of the things didn't happen.

So what we must believe about the story of Adam and Eve is that God made man in His own likeness out of love and that Man did something to ruin His relationship with God.

And in there somewhere, as a result of Man's separation from God, Man discovered shame and had to cover himself.

That's not the problem....believing or understanding that.

The problem is with what does man cover himself? There's your can of worms. Even a decent temple cover can go awry.