Advertisement
The tattoos on my body are a map of my identity: There’s a mantra in Hindi, Waheguru, which means “Wonderous Enlightener.” There’s a fallen king. A pair of lips. Two hands. The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. Atlas, Athena, and Hermes.
One tattoo surprisingly connects me to my Unitarian Universalist faith, which I discovered after I migrated to the United States from Colombia, and I started attending a UU congregation, First Parish in Brookline, Massachusetts. I found they had books on Rabindranath Tagore, who is sketched on my left arm; a bearded man, head bowed, wearing a tunic that merges with a koi swimming on my wrist.
Tagore was a poet, self-taught artist, and social reformer who lectured in the United States, including at the Unitarian Church of Urbana, Illinois, where his son, a foreign student, organized conferences and study groups. Tagore preached peace through unity. He said that nationalism was divisive, a trap of maya (in Sanskrit, “illusion”). Truth, he said, was found in unity.
Another of Diego’s tattoos, depicting The Kiss by Gustav Klimt.
Tagore’s grandfather, I learned in a UU history class, was a founder of the Brahmo Samaj, a Hindu reformist movement in India that centered on women’s emancipation, abolition of a caste system, universal brotherhood, rejection of polytheism, and a search for monotheism that could include Christianity and Islam. Tagore encouraged the shared reading of sacred Hindu texts alongside Christian scripture at a time when seeking common approaches grounded in humanity, the arts, and education was provocative.
Tagore’s teachings were not where I first saw the flame of my UU identity, but rather one of the forms through which that light—dwelling at the center of my heart—made me feel part of something that had long been calling me. A light called “community” that I shared through my congregation in Brookline and in my ministerial internship in Chestnut Hill. Those communities have shown me the diversity we as UUs hold and share with one another.
From Tagore, I learned a way to expand my Christianity into something wide and permeable. I visited Brookline and ended up feeling connected to a larger faith. Through the story of Tagore, I am reminded that wherever I migrate, if I find a place where I can be myself, with all my tattoos, I can be at home.
Tagore embodies my spiritual quest to understand Hindu and Christian traditions—and all the other faiths I have yet to encounter. Moreover, he proposed a pedagogical relationship with nature, with an educational model centered on the arts and philosophy. He sparks my inspiration to be an ordained UU minister.
I want to be part of a living tradition where my tattoos are shapeshifting images of UU theology and my migration story. They will remain with me on my lifelong camino de fe.