{"id":36183,"date":"2022-11-11T12:03:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T12:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/columnist-humorously-recalls-ill-advised-tattoos\/"},"modified":"2022-11-11T12:03:00","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T12:03:00","slug":"columnist-humorously-recalls-ill-advised-tattoos","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/columnist-humorously-recalls-ill-advised-tattoos\/","title":{"rendered":"Columnist Humorously Recalls Ill-Advised Tattoos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t<em>New York Times<\/em> columnist Kashana Cauley knows a little something about regrets. She wrote, &ldquo;My friends and I got tattoos so we could feel dangerous. Not very dangerous, because very dangerous people went to jail, but slightly dangerous, like a thrilling drop of botulism in a jar of jelly.&rdquo;<\/p>\n\n<p>She explains in the piece that when it came time to select her first tattoo, she picked a design of Chinese characters that she was told meant &ldquo;fame and fortune.&rdquo; But then she had chat with an older Chinese-speaking woman in a university locker room when they were changing clothes.<\/p>\n\n<p>&ldquo;She asked me what I thought the Chinese characters on my shoulder meant, and I told her. Then she asked me what I was at school to study, and I said law. She frowned and told me the tattoo was better suited for someone in the arts &mdash; that I should hurry up and get into the arts. We both laughed.&rdquo;<\/p>\n\n<p>But Cauley thought it would be different when she got a tattoo of her own name. As an African American descended from slavery, her knowledge of family history doesn&rsquo;t extend very far. But a friend told her once that her name meant something beautiful and significant in Arabic. As a result, she looked up an online Arabic translation of her name, and got that design as another tattoo.<\/p>\n\n<p>And she was satisfied with her choice &hellip; until she wasn&rsquo;t. &ldquo;For a few years I walked around confident that I had finally restored some meaning to my name, until an Arabic-speaking friend spotted my tattoo at lunch. &lsquo;What do you think it means?&rsquo; she asked.&rdquo;<\/p>\n\n<p>Her friend&rsquo;s response surprised her. &ldquo;Instead of complimenting me on the beautiful, permanent version of my name needled onto my arm, my Arabic-speaking friend paused. Apparently, tattoo No. 2 was actually one of those 404 error messages, when an online search comes up blank. So my arm said, more or less: &lsquo;Result not found.&rsquo;&rdquo;<\/p>\n\n<p>&ldquo;As a reluctant pioneer in the field of bad tattooing, I spent years afterward stubbornly telling people it meant &lsquo;the eternal search.&rsquo; It sounded more elegant than &lsquo;I didn&rsquo;t find a correct translation of my name on the internet.&rsquo;&rdquo;<\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead2\">Possible Preaching Angle:<\/h2>\n\n<p><em>We can avoid embarrassing mishaps by asking for the counsel of others to help guide us through the major decisions we make.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3391,3694,3697,3746,3790,4021,4104,4109,4164,4191,4192,4227,4380,4458,4459,4482,4483,4546,4662,5047,5122,5199,5279],"tax_ctp_topics":[395,396],"class_list":["post-36183","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-advice","tax_ctp_tags-correction","tax_ctp_tags-counsel","tax_ctp_tags-decision","tax_ctp_tags-discernment","tax_ctp_tags-friendship","tax_ctp_tags-growth","tax_ctp_tags-guidance","tax_ctp_tags-honesty","tax_ctp_tags-humiliation","tax_ctp_tags-humility","tax_ctp_tags-imperfection","tax_ctp_tags-listening","tax_ctp_tags-mentor","tax_ctp_tags-mentoring","tax_ctp_tags-mistakes","tax_ctp_tags-misunderstanding","tax_ctp_tags-news-that-illustrates","tax_ctp_tags-pop-culture","tax_ctp_tags-spiritual-friendship","tax_ctp_tags-teachability","tax_ctp_tags-truth","tax_ctp_tags-wisdom"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Columnist Humorously Recalls Ill-Advised Tattoos - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/columnist-humorously-recalls-ill-advised-tattoos\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Columnist Humorously Recalls Ill-Advised Tattoos - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"New York Times columnist Kashana Cauley knows a little something about regrets. 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