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I have a few tattoos. I also have a neighbor who’s an elderly Indian (from India, not Wyoming). His name is Ram.
Ram asked me the other day why I had gotten tattoos. He wanted to know if I had been a bad boy once.
I have one tattoo that runs the entire length of my arm. It’s a sleeve tattoo, but it’s also better than that.
My tattoo’s from God.
I said to Ram,
On the day I was born
The nurses all gathered ’round
And they gazed in wide wonder
At the joy they had found
The head nurse spoke up
Said “leave this one alone”
She could tell right away
That I was bad to the bone*
He seemed satisfied, but then he doesn’t understand English that well.
Anyway, I went to Sid’s Tattoo Parlor because I had been referred to them by a couple different people. I spoke to Sid himself and decided to make an appointment for about 3 months out. That was the soonest Sid could get me in.
Although I had made the appointment, I wasn’t sure what kind of tattoo I wanted or where I would put it.
Eventually I decided I wanted a small dragon on my forearm just below the inside of my elbow.
About a month before my appointment, I was having lunch with a church pastor friend of mine and I mentioned the tattoo I was planning.
He was concerned and said, “You don’t want to do that because dragons represent the devil.”
Now I know the devil is called a dragon one time in the Book of Revelation. But the word dragon does not appear anywhere else in the Bible, so I thought that was just his opinion, which was fine. He clearly shouldn’t get a dragon tattoo.
A couple weeks later I was having lunch with a different pastor friend, mentioned my plan to get a dragon tattoo, and he said the same thing–dragons represent the devil.
WTF? Did you guys talk or something?
Admittedly, this was a little disconcerting–maybe I should reconsider the dragon.
Two days before my appointment with Sid, Cindy and I decided to go to a Bible study group. We had never been before, but had heard good things about it, and wanted to get involved with something compelling.
It started with some music and people were encouraged to think about the songs and about God. When the music time was over, the leader asked if anyone had gotten anything they thought was from God.
One young guy spoke up and said he had gotten a picture in his mind’s-eye–like a waking dream–of a dragon flying through the air all free and happy. Then he saw the dragon walking on the ground, looking over his shoulder as if something was bothering him. The young man then said, “someone here is a dragon.”
That kind of freaked me out.
I had studied martial arts for years when I was younger and I was in a system where the sensei would identify each student as a type of animal based on how they fought. I was told I was a dragon.
After that the group took a little break for coffee. I approach this guy and asked him if he saw dragons in his head very often. He said, “No, this is the first time, and besides, I thought dragons always represented the devil.” I told him I had heard something like that too.
After snack time the leader taught something from the Bible. Just as he was wrapping it and the evening up, I raised my hand to ask a question.
“Did that dragon thing resonate with anyone?” Nobody said yes and I said nothing more.
As the group was breaking up, a another young man walked up to me and said, “You know when you raised your hand?”
I said, “Yeah.”
“Well, when you did that I heard a voice in my ear say, ‘That guy is going to get a dragon tattoo.'”
Then he looked at me. “Does that mean anything to you?”
I’ll admit I was now really freaked out.
None of these people could know I was thinking about tattoos, dragons, or dragon tattoos.
If this was God speaking to and through them, why did He care?!
My tattoo decision just got super intense.
The next day I had an appointment with my counselor. I decided to tell her the whole story and see what she thought. When I finished she asked me a couple questions:
“Are you getting a dragon tattoo to be antagonistic to anyone or group of people (i.e., pastors of churches)?”
“No.”
“Are you getting it to be defiant in general?”
“No.”
“Are you getting it because you think it represents the devil?”
“No.”
Apparently satisfied, she then said, “so you’ve recently had two church leaders tell you what you were about to do was wrong. That’s the story of your life, right? But God your father, who knows your heart, is saying to you… ‘just get the fucking tattoo.'”
Yeah, my counselor cusses like a sailor, but I was used to it by then.
I went to my appointment with Sid and explained I was thinking about a dragon on my forearm about 4-6 inches long. He said, “You know, that’s almost a half-sleeve, and most people, when they get a half-sleeve, end up wishing they had gotten a full sleeve.” He went on to say that he had a cool idea for a full sleeve and proceeded to draw it free-hand.
A 4-6 inch tattoo is not a half-sleeve as far as I know. But I figured God clearly wanted me to get the best tattoo I could get, so I went with a full sleeve. Besides, this could be God speaking through Sid, so better safe than sorry.
It took three separate appointments and over 14 hours. It turned out awesome.
And it’s made me very popular.
I’ve lost count of how many time I’ve been approached by people wanting to talk about it.
On two occasions TSA agents have pulled me out of security lines just so they could check it out.
I’ve had complete strangers ask if they can touch it and then proceed to stroke my arm while making strange noises.
However the greatest gift this tattoo has ever given me happened at Starbucks.
The barista serving me was a cute little blonde girl. She asked me about my tattoo.
Did I mention she was blonde?
I didn’t tell her the whole story I just told you, but I did explain that it’s a Japanese dragon as indicated by the four claws (Chinese dragons and royal dragons have five claws) and that dragons represent wisdom and protection. Part of the lore is that these dragons were spiritual creatures that protected villages from demons and other bad things.
She stood there staring into my face, practically mesmerized.
When I finished she said, “Wow… Are you Asian?”
I laughed and said, “Asian? No! I’m black.”**
*First verse of Bad to the Bone by George Thorogood and the Destroyers.
**I’m very white.
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