#self canvas

The body as a temple.

I, like many North American children, was raised in a very Protestant household. I don't know how things have changed in the church since the late 90s/early 2000s, but when I was a child things like tattoos and piercings (especially on AMAB kids) was anathema.

Naturally, as teenagers do, I rebelled. I drew patterns like this on paper since middle school. In high school I started drawing it on my body. The belly of my arm was the number one canvas. I drew on it almost daily. I used every colour of pen I could get my hands on, every spare moment of class time or free time to make my arm a work of art. For that I was punished. A teacher gave me detention for doing this instead of reading, the air cadets thought it was a tattoo and forbade it, even my mother was shocked by it and had my pastor give me a talking to about the evils of ink. What did that result in? At age 18 I got my first real tattoo, then another, then two more. I stopped because of money, but if that were no object I would be covered head to toe.

So what's the point of this story of teenage drama? The way I was raised, the body was an ideal, Protestant temple. For those that have never been inside a Protestant church (at least NA ones around me), they are bereft of things like icons. There are no paintings of the saints, certainly none of Christ. And our bodies should reflect that and be "clean" for God. I deeply disagree with this notion. If our bodies are indeed temples, they ought to be like the Sistine Chapel, or Saint Basil's Cathedral: decorated with works of art.

Of course that art doesn't have to be religious in origin and I don't intend this to be a message solely for Christians. This is simply the perspective of someone that was neck deep in the church from childhood onwards. I don't hold any grudges for that, it simply was my experience.