agape

welp, i got a tattoo.
it was quite an experience.

I was accompanied on my adventure to Dermafilia in my favorite neighborhood in Mexico City - Coyoacan, by my lovely aunt cynthia and uncle bob who happened to be in town this past weekend. In the midst of visiting all the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo places there are to see between the neighborhoods of San Angel and Coyoacan, we made a stop off at a little tattoo parlor that, don't worry, had been highly recommended to me. After some arguments with the tattoo dudes, and a few rolls of the eyes (on their part) i agreed to finally check off another thing from my "TO DO" list - get a tattoo!

I would like to take this space to officially thank both my aunt and uncle for the support they gave me - on several levels! Thanks Cynthia, for encouraging me to do it (even if your sister disowns you!), and for lending me your hands for my squeezing necessities during the pain! Thank you Bob, for asking the important questions prior to the tattoo, making sure i was sure i wanted to do it, and for being the official photographer of the event :) Les agradezco mucho!

Throughout this past year, a certain Bible verse has continually made itself known to me in various ways. And I realized that it was this verse that I wanted to permanently etch into my skin...
from Colossians 3:
¹²Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

So, many months ago I realized I wanted to somehow turn this idea of "over all these virtues put on love" into a tattoo. However, I hate the english language for several reasons - one of which is that the word "love" is used to refer to SO many different ways of loving (sibling love, sensual love, friendship love, etc. etc.). But the kind of love that I believe this verse is talking about is best defined by the Greek word "agape." Agape is, en pocas palabras, God's love. Check out this link for a more in-depth description of agape. Jes Buller gave me the great idea of somehow using the word agape to draw a person...so the idea of my tattoo is this: it looks like a person, that is made out of the word agape. So the essence is, the person is dressed in, or more-so made of, agape.

I love it :)