Kirkepiscatoid

Deuteronomy 6:4-9:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

Every now and then, I look at the stats on my site meter.

Turns out that for a long time, the most common "hit" I get on this site has not been any post full of great and erudite spiritual food, but a 2007 post I made showing off my triquetra tattoo when I got it (above.)

I think ever since the show "Charmed," triquetras became hot items in the tattoo parlor. I get hits all over the word from people Googling "triquetra tattoo."

Hrummmph.

Yeah, there is a part of me that wishes it was one of my more pithy spiritual ramblings. But actually, I'm okay with that.

I've come to the conclusion that tattoo can be a form of ministry.

It's not quite a "sign upon my hand or forehead," but I got it to represent the Trinity, and how Trinity-Kirksville became a part of my life. I figure if someone stumbles across it merely searching for a design for a new tattoo, they don't just visit this page and "hit" it, they discover the opportunity to visit my whole blog.

The number of folks with tattoos these days is a rather sizable number of the younger to middle aged population, and a lot of folks these days also get a "wild hare" and get one, and the number one reason folks get one is that they are wanting express something--a thought, a feeling, a person or life situation dear to them. Often they are to affiliate themselves with something bigger than themselves--a school, or a branch of the military, perhaps--and they are placing it upon their body as an outward sign of this affiliation or expression.

Well...isn't that what we want our transformation as Christians to do? Don't we want what is inside of us to become a visible and outward sign of our life in Christ as a child of God? Don't we want the light of God to be "tattooed" all over us?

People looking to connect others to a story of their life shop for tattoos. People looking to connect others to a story of their life also seek to connect to God. I figure it's always possible for a person who started out "scoping out tattoo designs" temporarily put that on hold to nose around my blog for a spell. Looking at my site meter, it appears that about one in 20 to 25 hits on my post with this tattoo spend longer on my blog than they had planned. I can see where they started out Google searching for a triquetra tattoo, and then instead of exiting it a couple of minutes later, they hit a few more pages...usually they go to the newest posts.

Sometimes I wonder what happens from that. If all they wanted was to get some ideas from my tattoo design, great. I'm glad to share. But I wonder if once in a while, they don't get a little more curious about God than they realized they were.

All of them are in my prayers.