Skip to main content

Human Being

I have been thinking about getting a new tattoo for over a year. For a while, I thought
about the phrase I read in a book by Augusten Burroughs: “Harder is just harder”. I felt comforted at the idea that harder isn’t impossible, it’s just harder. However, the right time and place for that tat never materialized.
That idea faded when I came upon another phrase: fida et audax- faithful and bold. I loved the idea of this motto and it made me feel strong and courageous to imagine it on my wrist or on an ankle. This was my plan until about 3 weeks ago.
A variety of life events came to a culmination and I found that I was exhausted, frustrated, and tense. Overwhelmed by all things that seemed insurmountable, I marinated in the idea that in this intense time, I couldn’t “do” very much. All I could do was be.
Be.
I’m not very good at being. I am good at doing. I am good at thinking. I am okay at feeling, but I tend to put that aside for what I think I should do.
I went to visit a friend in New York. She was with me in 2005 when I got my first tattoo. Getting my second with her was a natural choice, but as I thought about what I wanted, I realized that I couldn’t get fida. That was about doing. It was about actions, resistance, and persistence. Those things are very important to me, but if I was getting a permanent reminder... I don’t need one for how to do, I need one for how to be.
Then I knew... I would get sola gratia- grace alone. One of the rallying cries of the reformations of the 16th century, this phrase grounds me not in my own doing, but in God’s doing. In light of God’s doing, my response is to be. Being beloved. Being saved. Being healed. Being welcomed. Being held. By grace alone. Not by my doing, my thinking, or my successes or failures.
By grace. Alone.
So now it is permanently inked into my wrist. It is a reminder that what I am, first and last, is God’s. Thus, whether I am trying the hard thing, the bold thing, the faithful thing... there is always time to still myself. To know I am loved. To be washed again in grace alone.
Labels:

Comments

Katie said…
I love your new tattoo! Thanks for sharing
November 4, 2017 at 2:59 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm In

A few weeks ago ,  I was using voice-to-text to compose some prayers. After I was finished speaking the whole list, I was proof-reading the document and   realized that everywhere I said “Amen”, the voice-to-text wrote “I’m in”. “Amen” essentially means  “may it be so”,  but what would it look like to end our prayers with “I’m in”. What would change if we rose from our knees, left our prayer closets, closed our devotionals, and moved with purpose toward the goals for which we had just prayed.  Lord, in your mercy:  Grant justice to the oppressed and disenfranchised (I’m in) Cast down the mighty from their thrones (I’m in)  Console the grieving and welcome the prodigal (I’m in)  Welcome strangers and attend to the marginalized (I’m in)  Grant the space for the silenced to speak… and listen (I’m in)  Fill the hungry with good things and send the rich away empty (I’m in)  Forgive others as I am forgiven (I’m in) Be merciful as God in h...
Post a Comment
Read more

Top Ten Things to Learn from the book of Job

Readings: Job 1:1-22; Job 38:1-11; Luke 8: 22-25 10. Job contradicts Proverbs.   The writer of Proverbs offers the hope and consolation that people who live wisely and faithfully, according to the will of God, will flourish and prosper. The very first chapter of Job says: it ain’t necessarily so. You may well live righteously and with great integrity and, still, terrible things may happen. A faithful life is not an automatic buffer to calamity. Due to this contradiction between the books, both of which are categorized as wisdom literature, we are reminded of all those who have gone before us who tried to make the Bible speak with one voice. It doesn’t. The Bible has many voices, some of which are quite dissonant together, but they sing one song about the presence and providence of God.  9. Job is an old story, but a young book, relatively speaking. Since Job doesn’t mention Abraham or Moses or the laws or the Temple, some interpreters have considered it the oldest story ...
Post a Comment
Read more

While to That Rock I'm Clinging (Epiphany 2025)

I recently read a book that contained this line, “God can only be drilled out of us, not into us. I can see that now, from a distance.” God can only be drilled out of us, not into us. The author was discussing the griefs and losses of her life, but also her awareness of the larger scope of the movement and power that carries us all, even in the difficult seasons. You do not survive these seasons by thinking there is no God unless the idea of a God who cares, who is slow to anger, who is abounding in steadfast love has been drilled out of you.   How does the idea of God get “drilled out of a person”? In today’s scripture passages, we have an example of people who have held on to the majesty and mystery of God, even in times of trouble. Then we also have a person whose awareness of the Divine has been drilled out by a desire to retain power and worldly influence.  The magi or wise men were probably Persian astrologers or maybe Zoroastrian priests from the same region, modern-day...
Post a Comment
Read more