Friday, October 30, 2009

Choose the Right Tattoo

Matt has twenty-three (23) tattoos and he offered up this simple trio of letters:
The CTR represents the expression "Choose the Right," a common thread in the ideology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, more commonly referred to as the Mormon church.

In essence, Matt explained, it means "follow the right path". Its akin to a mantra eschewing sinful activities frowned upon by the church like drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, doing drugs, and, yup, you guessed it: getting tattooed.

Matt finds great power in this tattoo because it represents an oxymoron: the letters CTR stand for a way of life that is contradicted by the fact that they have been tattooed on flesh. It would be like a Jewish person having the phrase, in Hebrew, "You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or imprint markings upon you: I am the Lord" tattooed on them. As a tattooed Mormon, this is Matt's way of addressing,and coming to terms with, the disparity between faith and his love of tattoos.

This was tattooed by a friend of his in Ogden, Utah.

Thanks to Matt for sharing his ink with us here on Tattoosday!

2 comments:

  1. About that "You shall not make gashes" tattoo. You can see one just such tattoo here:

    You Shall not Tattoo, Tattoo

    It probably happened unintentionally, though, unlike Matt's tattoo.

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  2. If you travel to El paso,TX or up to alamogordo- las cruches, NM dont flash that tattoo the crypts around here have CTR tattooed on thier necks and chest weird i know- peace out from a NM Mormon working on full sleeves laters-sean

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