The Illustrated Man

Today I learned a valuable lesson in an extremely exotic and unsuspecting way.

I helped a friend out today by minding his store for a few hours. People came in, and I even talked to a few. The one little girl came in, full of energy and questions. And complete intrigue about the man outside who was covered in tattoos. His arms, legs, face, even inside his ears and the underside of his hands had been tattooed. Gathering some courage from the boiserous little girl beside me, I asked him which was his favourite, or, which meant the most to him. Without hesitation he lifted his shirt to show me his sketched belly. I was a little suprised he was lifting his shirt in public, but the closer I looked, the harder it was for me to figure out the design.

Suddenly the little girl yelled, "It's Jesus!" and at the same time the illusrated man said "The passion of the Christ." Sure enough, sketched in black and greys was a picture of Christ, his face forlorn, his head circled with thorny vines.

That's when I learned my lesson. I was looking to closely at the finer details to be able to see the whole picture. It's just God that I was looking too close at Christ. For it is the same in our Christian lives- we search too closely at the tiny details of Christ, trying to figure out motivations and reasonings and theories, while the answer is there- we need only to step back and see the whole picture.

One of my favourite authors in Ray Bradbury. In one of his stories he writes of a man whose body is completely covered in ink. However, it's not as simple as just that. His tattoos tell stories, and can even seem to tell the future. The difference between the illustrated man I met and Bradbury's? I don't really know. Except one seems to regret his, not want to proudly show them off...