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In my estimation, life is a sundry collection of meandering discoveries and relearned truths.

Nice Tat J.C.

In conversing with a friend recently the question of what kind of tattoo would Jesus have if he had one came up....because what else would we be talking about right?

So would his sun darkened, leathered skin display the holy ideologies of God's directing or would it simply be the latest catchy phrase of the B.C. Jewish culture? Would he wind up getting something that seemed cool at the time but would be irrelevant and possibly dated after a few years? Think swirling Tasmanian Devil equivalent of his time. Or possibly an 80's styled rose.

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As he leans over to multiply a few fish or restore the crumpled leg of a broken man his robe slips down ever so slightly revealing the phrase "No Fear" emblazoned across the small of his neck. The onlooking crowd gasps then snickers to themselves knowing that anyone with such a tattoo could only wish they never got the thing done in the first place. The disciples look at each other with looks speaking to their ever increasing doubt that this really is who they hope it is. Questions pop up in their minds like "Is this really the Son of God?" or "If Jesus is the Son of God couldn't he have used his powers to take a peak at the future cultural landscape and discover that such a tattoo would cease to be cool a few years down the road?"

Jesus would quickly recover I'm sure. Possibly muttering something about being young and stupid or creating some sort of distraction with a well placed miracle of some sort.

"Hey look! More fish!"

I'm sure this wouldn't wash the image of a tattoo splayed across Jesus' neck from the disciples minds entirely. It would only serve to delay the inevitable. Later on as the disciples inch closer to the fire, fighting off the chill of a dessert night, the topic would resurface.

"So....."

...awkward silence would build as if to gather it's strength, eventually culminating into a statement that spoke to what was on everyone's mind...

"...what was that on Jesus' neck?" Grunts of agreement to the question's relevance would be heard all around the camp fire.

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And I'm thinking about all the Christiany types of things I've seen people tattoo on themselves. I don't think Jesus would relish the idea of a cross enough to make it on his list of good things to have tattooed. The tried and true Jesus fish thing would really just fall short. WWJD could really come across as self aggrandizing. Not that Jesus didn't have every right to self aggrandize but I just don't think that's a route he would have taken. Come to think of it, I wonder if Jesus ever asked his disciples when they were about to do something stupid, "come on guys....what would I do?"

A scripture reference would probably really work for Jesus since he was always quoting them. Especially since he could just come up with something new on the spot if nothing that had been written up to that point suited his fancy.

Would Jesus get a tattoo? Who knows. Lately I've been picturing him with wooden ear rings but that's just me.

I wonder if guys in the 70's pictured him with an afro? I guess that's the thing about Jesus. Being without a face, we're able to interpret his appearance in whatever way makes the most sense to us. I think he's able to bridge social, cultural and economical boundaries in this way.

Take this picture for example:



Pretty standard really. It's funny how the most widely excepted portraits of Jesus, in reality, couldn't be further from the truth. For many people the picture of a middle class, well groomed, white Jesus is the most comfortable way to see him. Whatever works right?

Then there's this one:



Now this is a bit too Back Street boysish for my taste but I'm sure it makes sense to someone.

Or what about this one:



This comes to you curtousy of CNN who somehow figured out what Jewish guys looked like back in the day. Think confused caveman. Personally I find this portrait kind of ridiculous. It's not working as far as I'm concerned.

There's the black Jesus:



You've got the latest rendition:



and then there's this guy:



This was brought to my attention courtesy of Kate. This depiction actually answers a number of questions:

1) Jesus would indeed get a tattoo
2) We now know what tattoo he would get
3) We also get a pretty good idea of what Jesus would look like were he born in a trailer park somewhere in rural Oklahoma.

I guess I could show you portraits all day. Images that have, over the years, popped up in our gallery of icons. Man's ongoing attempts to put a face to someone who at times seems more like legend than historical fact. Then again at times Jesus seems more real to me than anything else in this world.

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I'm not sure how I wound up showing you portraits of Jesus but there it is. I guess this whole post is driven by my underlying desire to think of Jesus in a humanistic way. I believe theirs a lot of tension between Jesus' deism and his humanism. It's easy to sum him up by what he's been recorded saying in Scripture. I don't think this is a wholistic picture of God's Son however. It's the really important parts of course but his day to day life is all but lost between the cracks.

I guess this is me trying to fill in those cracks.

It's Fall...and winter kind of

While it does feel like fall it really felt a bit like winter this past weekend as we went up to the mountains. The pictures will suffice in the explanation of why.

Beautiful indeed. The milky white interrupted with explosions of intermittent veins of fiery yellow leaves. It was one of those trips that you couldn't have planned if you tried. No one had an agenda and no one was in a rush and everything seemed to fall into place. It turns out that lazy meandering conversations, mountain coffee houses, snow and yellow leaves packages surprisingly well.

I love autumn.

FWD:

Have you ever met someone who seems to be a great person?

FWD: George Bush Prays for Peace

Someone you actually like? Someone, after developing a reasonable comfort in your relationship, you decide to initiate email contact with for the first time.

FWD: Emergency recall on Baby Formula

After a few pleasant cybernetic interactions a pattern emerges.

FWD: Is Your Virus Filter Fighting Against You?

After what would seem like, thousands of email forwards, jokes and internet hoaxes later you realize with great trepidation that you've been the victim of over communication. Except its not even communication. It's more like pollution. Inbox pollution. Communicative abuse.

FWD: Who Have You Prayed For Today?

FWD: Rock Star Believes In God

Countless emails emerge describing Bill Clinton's close encounters with marijuana, a local hero's funeral in Lakota, Swiffer WetJet warnings and a withdrawal of said Swiffer warning after finding out that the whole thing was a hoax but not before sending it to thousands of recipients. And you have to ask yourself...where is Lakota anyway?

I guess I'm here to tell you that I'm the latest victim of the ongoing communicative abuses of our society.

Jesus The Dentist

MMMMMMM...minty. This was the thought that entered and exited my mind susinctly after a 3 inch needle was jammed into my jaw rendering unmerited pain throughout the face.

And then numbnesss.

You know, dental work isn't a bad racket. For the ones behind the needle of course. The deal goes something like this: If you ram needles the size of those fat toothpicks you can get at old 70's diners into my mouth and use tiny hooks to pry my gums away from my teeth and spray me in the eyeball with lukewarm water and warp my cheeks with over powered vacuum tubes I will give you no less than $487 dollars.

I do believe the only appropriate response from any dentist worth his dental school tuition will replay with an emphatic "with pleasure."

I write all of this with the standard post dental visit two-faced feeling. Half of my face - just fine. The other half, well it doesn't exist. I can see it in the mirror of course but...you get the idea. This leads me to run my tongue along the numb inner side of my cheek and flick it off the edge of my mouth making a juicy, flapping sound.

It's not that I enjoy the sound, it's just that I want to make sure it's still there.

All of this , for no explainable reason, brings me back to a line of thinking I had early this week. It could be easily stated that one who truly follows the ways of Jesus has some sort of twisted addiction to pain and discomfort. I find that the more I want to follow Jesus the more he introduces me to these things that terrify me the most. It's a process of deconstruction I suppose. You find that you've been running away from these things your whole life and never knew it until you walk beside Jesus and he mentions some of them. Which makes me think that Jesus is somewhat socially inept. I mean that isn't exactly pleasant dinner conversation. I wonder if Jesus ever talked about the weather?

And then he tells you to run straight for those terrifying things in your life. "Face your fears" type of thing.

Which leads me to the idea that Jesus isn't a very cozy person. If you think he is you probably don't know him all that well. If you think you want to know him just be prepare for stinging needles and a vacuum thrusted down your throat as a warm and calculated voice tells you to "tilt your head and close your mouth cause this is going to get messy."