The Meaning Behind the Tattoos
I’ve had a few people ask me what the two trees on my arms represent. Now that they are both finished, I can try to explain it.
A long time ago, when I was a much younger man, a very wise Episcopal priest and I were discussing the nature of good and evil, right and wrong. At that time I was becoming angry with the church for it’s intolerance of gay and lesbian people, and was beginning to lose my faith in organized religion.
We talked about the role of religion in contemporary society, and whether it was relevant in a modern world. Did we really need religion to tell us what was good and what was evil? Did we really need a priest to teach us right from wrong?
After a lull in the conversation, Ted, (The priest) looked at me and said:
“Matthew, perhaps the job of the church is not to teach us right from wrong, good from evil after all. Perhaps the churches role, and that of religion in general, is to teach us how to live good and happy lives in the tension between the two.”
That statement has stuck with me ever since. I often reflect on it when bad things happen, as well as when everything seems to be going right. Life is about tension. Tension between doing the right thing, or doing the wrong thing, tension between salvation and damnation.
