Richard Rohr: Initiation: Tatoos and Body Piercings

I wonder if the prevalence of hazing, tattoos, and body piercings is a secular substitution for what young men once sought by fasting, circumcision, scarification, shaving of heads, and knocking out of teeth. True initiation marks you indelibly and gives you your sacred name, but only when it is accompanied by an interior sacred wounding that reminds you that life is hard and that you are, indeed, wounded and powerless before the Mystery of Full Life.