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The Big Why
 The big question word - Why did this happen? Why are things going this way, that way, the wrong way, the dangerous way, the inexplicable way? Why are we out of control? Why don’t you love me first?
When I see our youth or someone who has had it right for so long, when someone has everything, every opportunity and another just worked, well, in his gut, not his or her way into fame and fortune, where things are better and not bad. Do they need to reward themselves by torturing their skin with tattoos?
Why do men and women have tattoos all over their body? It’s gotten to be a painful undertaking, maybe a charge that they can take any kind of pain no matter what, or pain is pain and what one wears on his or chest is part of a belief, part art to expose of heroes, the images on him or her, that no one can really tear off. I wonder if it is for the pain, that one can survive and suffer pain being carved into his or her body - on their fingers, on their ankles, on their fronts and backs, and worse on their face and neck, hands, breasts and chests, maybe their histories in black/blue lines carved - on some brave bodies, the whole skin is the canvas for tattoos. I’m the year of the Rabbit, in Chinese lore. Should I have a rabbit tattoo just in case I forget, or someone sees it when I’m rolled into the tomb or the fire of death? Is this vital information when one looks to see who and what one has been?
Did you know tattoos were found in the time of Neolithic, often on mummified preserved skin, popular in the Upper Paleolithic period in Europe. In the 4th millennium BC, the first was found on the body of Otzi the Iceman, between 3370-3100 BC. Found too in Greenland, Alaska, Siberia, Mongolia, Western China, Egypt, Sudan, the Philippines, and the Andes, even Russia and Pre-Columbia in South America. It wasn’t a Native American habit, I think. They had other measures of faith. I guess from the start people wanted people to know who had been here on earth, in a certain spot. They left their skin behind, I guess. They show they were in the military, that was the first popular rage, and then hippies and sports players, and Mamas who dance in not so pleasant places. Now it’s the rage all over this planet, tattoos.
Yes, I also have tattoos. When I broke away from Uruguay in 2002 and lived for two years in Jackson Hole, WY, I got brave to try those painful needle decors. I was going through all sorts of spiritual challenges, even though I was already an Anglican deacon (1995), not yet a priest. It was a time when the idea of women priest popped up and the door was opened in the Anglican church (which is worldwide), yet some areas abroad did not like the idea, the religious powers in South American denied women full priests until 2015. Not even the horrors and disasters of 9-11 opened the souls of the Anglican bishops in Latin America and others worldwide to allow women to work beside them as priests, good priests, creative priests, amazing priests, healing priests, comforting priests, who were especially needed through so many horrific disasters occurring where fear began to take over freedom. It was often because some specific Muslim cult dribbled all over the United States, and the powers that ruled were ashamed, had no solution so fast, and really didn’t know what to do next.
Ironically, Uruguay was wise because they allowed the Communist party (Frente Amplio) to settle in for 15 years and give the poor men and women chances to scream and yell and fight and find praise and creation of their liking, and jobs, and a voice in the government run by an amazing, beloved, elderly president Jose Mujica, who had been tortured almost to death under the military regime, which was stimulated by some American military macho. Mujica was special. He refused to ride in the President’s Limo and instead drove his own Volkswagen to work with no entourage. He refused to have his small garden surrounded by military police that normally should go with his position. He felt safe and had one guard at the entrance just to tell people if the President would be home soon. Even the guard didn’t know.
But among the many challenges Mujica presented as a communist/socialist president, there was one thing he did that no one has ever equaled: He donated 2/3rds of his salary annually to feed the poor and help them build homes and hope and have a life. Find me another president in any corner of the earth who did or does that and you will have shaken hands with a miracle. Now you wonder “why” I love Uruguay? He was in power 15 years.
Then we have in Our Country Tiz of Thee, the supposed land of liberty, i.e., freedom. Why is that? Where is that Liberty supposedly birthed and tossed us into a song of such at events - and yet some of the most exciting, intelligent, and devoted members of this country have been treated like slobs, like failures, like exiles, like they don’t have a single swallow of grace and faith in their hearts. Have you notice how people are killing each other with easily purchased or robbed guns or weapons sought somehow through purchase, trade, stolen, won, or wheeled and dealed, and they are left out there floating in the blood of victory, while our youth crumble into sinners and gangster? There isn’t much room for faith in one’s soul or in one’s learning, in one’s heart, in one’s hope of having an adventuresome, educated, faithful chance before someone slaughters them because they were in the wrong car or at the wrong place at the wrong time. And this breaks my heart.
So much of our youth are taking the Why and squashing it into reasons because “they could” and because “they would” or because they had nothing else better to do, and they ended the challenges, the lives, the hopes, all that preparation of doing good which turned into tiptoe through the tulips but flipped over into the garbage dump because no one wanted them anymore. And I wake up screaming because it is all so unfair. Where is God to control this thing, this nightmare that is crawling on our street, in our schools, in our hopes - and what used to be admired to take a challenge, to make a difference, has now turned into pull the shades, closed the blinds, get out your guns and sleep with them under those fluffy pillows, and hope the dog doesn’t go out in the street to make a noise, and gets assassinated first.
Even our basketball stars are getting a bit brawny, bitter, and brave thinking because they are who they are, and think they being who they are have powers that the rest of us don’t have, and can take risks in those fancy shoes and hair locks and giant bodies leaping into basketball nets to become victorious superstars, and therefore can get away with a behavior that is far from what good behavior used to be a couple of decades ago. Do they go to church anymore? or cross themselves before they step out into the game? At last, that gives some hope.
One’s holy cross tattooed the chest isn’t even a bit better than the other’s cross on the chest, be it in football, basketball, soccer, ice hockey, baseball and so forth. They all count, and I don’t think God sits up on His throne choosing who will win or lose that day or any day, if men and women don’t forget to give thanks that they are able to do what they do, and they will do it to the best of their ability with love for their family, friends, and teammates. One can’t be everywhere with everyone every minute of life. So, pick the good souls in the moment. And whomever wins, well, there is a Why in it somewhere. May they be humbled and good huggers to praise the loser as well.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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