“The Unbidden Tattoo”

Aside from being a pastor, the only other vocation I’ve engaged in during the past 44 years has been carpet cleaner. That’s when I got my tattoo. 

Several years into planting the new church in Arizona (circa 2005), Jennie kicked me out of the house and told me to get a job. Well, that was the gist of what she said. The truth of the matter is that I was consumed by trying to get that new church started. It was on my mind 24/7. Who else could I talk to about our new church? What else could I do to get the word out? What other things could I do to meet people, earn their trust, share my vision, and extend an invitation to come and see?  

Finally, Jennie said, “For your sanity and mine, you need to find something else to do to get your mind off this. A hobby. A diversion. A part-time job.”

I approached an acquaintance who was a member of the Kiwanis Club I had joined as a way of meeting people and serving the community. Brian owned a carpet and tile store. Sales. Service. Installation. Cleaning. I had seen a Help Wanted sign in his display window and asked him what he was hiring for.

“I’m always looking for carpet cleaners,” he said. 

I asked, “Would you hire me?”

He looked at me funny. “You’re a pastor. Plus, you’re getting old like me (We were in our mid-forties!). Cleaning carpets is hard work requiring young bodies with strong backs.”

“Give me a chance,” I said. “I need something to do part-time, maybe two days a week. We’re going to be having our first capital campaign soon to build our first unit and I’m going to pledge what I make from carpet cleaning plus some more as my gift to the campaign.”

“Trust me,” I continued. “I can do my ministry and clean carpets, too. In fact, the diversion will be a boon for my mental health – sabbaths of a sort – a renewing rest from the constancy of church planting.”

He said, “You’re hired.” 

There began a year of cleaning carpets all across the Valley of the Sun. My partner and mentor was Ramón, a young man in his twenties who was Brian’s #1 carpet cleaner. Though at first he wondered what I was doing cleaning carpets at my age with my profession, we quickly became good friends and, I must say, darn good carpet cleaners. An odd couple to be sure, but Hispanic Ramón and Anglo David complemented each other famously. We were assigned to Brian’s V.I.P. clients and always delivered. 

For lunch, depending on where we were in the course of our cleaning, Ramón delighted in introducing me to the best Mexican cuisine in Phoenix. Food trucks. Side alley grills. Cantinas way off the beaten path. As Ramon’s friend, I was welcomed with open arms and broad smiles: Pastor David! Mi Amigo! Buenos días!

The day I got my tattoo, I was at our carpet cleaning van reeling in the 100-foot hose that conveyed hot water heated in the boiler housed in the rear end of the van to the “wand” operated by the person cleaning the carpet inside. Given the 100+ degree days of a Phoenix summer and the heat generated by the boiler, the back of the van was a miserably steamy place to work. So, Ramón and I took turns.

That day, after Ramón completed the cleaning inside and gave me the signal, I detached the hose from the boiler, screwed it onto the reel, and began turning it in the counterclockwise fashion that would retrieve the hose from the house back to the reel in the van. Ramón followed the hose to make sure it didn’t scrape the door thresholds or come into contact with the furniture inside.

The process had become routine for me. That day, however, I slipped as I uncoupled the hose from the boiler, fell forward face first into the sharp metallic edge of the “chimney” on the side of the boiler, and sliced the bridge of nose. 

Ouch! Blood. Ramón!

I ended up at the community hospital in Phoenix where a longtime friend and member of our new church was a staff physician. Don’t tell anybody, but in exchange for my allowing one of his residents to practice the fine art of stitchery on the bridge of my schnoz, I got my sliced nose sutured up for free. The one complication was that the “chimney” of the boiler was coated in black soot which, when it penetrated my nose, left a line of black residue as its calling card – a perfectly horizontal line across the bridge of my nose. 

“The bad news,” my doctor buddy told me, “is that you got yourself a nice tattoo smack dab across your nose. The good news is you got it for free, we’ll be able to clean most of it up, and after a few months all you’ll have left is a scar.”

I proudly bear that scar to this day, a permanent reminder of a hard-earned over-and-above pledge to the new church’s first capital campaign.

During those years, a man showed me his tattoo. He rolled up his right sleeve and presented the ichthus on his deltoid. Ichthus is the Greek word for fish. You’ve likely seen bumper stickers, pins, or jewelry in the shape of a fish – two intersecting arcs with the ends extending beyond their intersecting point to create a “tail.” Early Christians used the symbol of a fish as a secret code to identify they were followers of Jesus. Legend has it that if an early Christian met a stranger, he or she could draw half of the ichthus on the ground. If the stranger completed the sketch, they would know they were Christians, a safety measure during those years of persecution.   

The letters of ichthus form an acrostic in which the Greek letters I - ch - th - u - s serve as the first letter of the Greek words that spell the phrase Jesus Christ Son of God Savior:

I -------------------Iesous -------------------Jesus

CH ----------------Christos----------------- Christ

TH ---------------- Theou-------------------- God

U-------------------Uios----------------------Son

S-------------------Soter---------------------Savior

To the uninitiated, you’re scrawling a fish in the dirt, but to those in the know, you’re confessing your faith. 

The man who rolled up his sleeve to show me his tattoo was flashing me his confession. He wears it on his body. It’s permanent. He’s a Christ follower for life...and eternity.

Likewise, whenever I look in the mirror I’m reminded of my own tattoo earned in service to the one I served by rolling up my own sleeves and cleaning carpets next to mi amigo Ramón.

Here’s to the life-altering permanence of our confessions of faith, however they are made and whatever form they take, on us and deep within us.