Tattoos
Dear gramps,
I am 19 years old and currently trying to return back to church. I’ve been less active for 5 years. In the time I was away I got two tattoos on my wrists. My question gramps is what does the average church member think about tattoos? Sometimes I feel like people are staring at them and talking about me. I dont feel as though I need to repent for them as I now view them as just another scar on my body. If the church can’t accept me for something that is only a scar how am I supposed to accept them back into my life again?
Need some help with this one gramps.
Hana
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Dear Hana,
There are some choices that we make in our lives the have consequences that echo for a very, very long time. Even if we have repented and would not ever make the same choice again. Given your age and your statement that your tattoos are visible, I think it is pretty safe to say that you choose to get tattoo in prominent locations so that they would be noticed.
It is hardly fair for you lay the blame for you getting exactly what you wanted on others, just because you changed your mind about it. This is a consequence of your choice and it is echoing.
Now to the subject of the church accepting you with your tattoos. Of course it can. More importantly Christ can and does, and that is where you need to focus. If you make the focus on individual members of the church you will find they have all kind of flaws, just like you. And just like you they attend church in hopes of becoming better people and have support in overcoming their weakness. Their weakness might be judgementalism, pride, arrogance, and well, the list can go on an on.
Develop your faith in Christ, strengthen your testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel, so that when you get tested (and you will) that you can hold on.
Gramps
I could hardly blame an LDS USN submariner for having the ‘dolphins’ tattooed on his (and now with the Navy admitting women into the ‘Silent Service’, her) bicep. Nor do I regard a ‘modest’ amount of service-related body art on a member who is or has served honorably in the Armed Forces. Interesting point: At one time, it was a ‘career killer’ for a USN officer to get a tattoo at all, and now seeing an officer all ‘inked up’ is not unheard of. How things have changed.
I would hope, however, that members would in general refrain from the garish expressions in body art and piercings that have seemed the ‘rage’ for the past 25 years or so. It’s not something that I think is generally becoming, and is often regretted later in life.
I know of someone whom, while she didn’t have a lot of ‘artwork’ on her person, did have the lower back tattoo pattern commonly known as the ‘tramp stamp’. She did join the Church and sometime afterwards got her Temple recommend and took out her own endowments. She was embarrassed when the lady temple worker, in performing ‘initiatory’, at first refused to do so due to her ‘garish’ artwork, and had to be advised by the temple matron that such refusal was improper (from what this ‘friend’ told me, the matron did the rite herself). We shouldn’t judge folks that got ‘inked up’ in ignorance or in a moment of poor judgment.