Temporarily Cained
Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. Now that you’ve driven me away from the fertile land and I am hidden from your presence, I’m about to become a roving nomad on the earth, and anyone who finds me will kill me.” The Lord said to him, “It won’t happen; anyone who kills Cain will be paid back seven times.” The Lord put a sign on Cain so that no one who found him would assault him. (Genesis 4:13-15, CEB translation)
“I really need someone to invent semi-permanent tattoo technology. And then I need a tattoo on my forehead that says ‘Temporarily Insane.’” That’s what I texted to a friend of mine who happens to have tattoos. He suggested I look at Inkbox, but those only last 1-2 weeks. I need something that will stick around for about a year. At the end of that year, I can reassess.
All this came about because I had just had my third very awkward interaction with someone who is new to our offices. In one case I had a meltdown in frustration. In another case, I had no good explanation for why I was where I was, so I just stumbled through words trying not to say something at the same time that I was trying to say something. And in another case, I forgot a detail that is so well known about her anyone above a perfect stranger would know it, then proceeded to put my foot all the way up in my mouth.
What I wanted to say to her after all that was this: “Look, I am not at my best right now. I haven’t had a lot of sleep lately. I am stressed about some things in my life, and I am more than a little addled. I promise, I am normally a sane, intelligent person. But I need a few months to get my head straightened out. In the meantime, please forgive this behavior. And please, please be kind. Please, don’t hurt me. I can’t take anymore hurt.”
And then it hit me what I really want: I want the mark of Cain.
The mark of Cain is one of those misunderstood and misused biblical references. Often people will describe murderers or incredibly despicable people as having the mark of Cain. I get how it got that association. Cain gets it after he killed Abel and God is forcing him away from his home. But at the top of this blog you have the passage where God marks Cain. Read it for yourself. It is not to warn people to stay away from Cain because he is a murderer. It is to warn people not to harm Cain because God is protecting him.
And sure, with such a mark comes an admission that he needs protection. It admits there is something wrong. But it also comes with an implication that Cain is not to be bothered. That Cain needs safety to recover from what he did. And that God will be with him as he literally wanders through some dark days. As he finds himself in the land of Nod. As he wanders through this life that is no longer on track.
I don’t think I am alone in needing such a mark. I think many of us need it. Maybe all of us need it at some time in our lives. We all make poor decisions. We all experience loss and grief. We all get off track from time to time. And we all have moments when we just aren’t in a state where we can handle any hint of an outside assault on our being.
Pastors often bemoan how we struggle to get anyone to kneel at the altar and pray, and we know that at least in part that is because people don’t want to announce that they are weak and need help, or to start any rumors about their lives. Social media now exacerbates this pressure to always show a perfect selfie face and a Pinterest worthy house. But I would like to push against those false realities. I would like to have the mark of Cain, at least for this season of struggle I am in. And I would like to hope and trust that people would see it, and would treat me with kindness. Or at the very least would know God’s got my back, and to lay off for a while. And I think I would also like to look in the mirror and see that temporary tattoo, and give myself permission to rely on God and not myself right now.
So seriously, someone get cracking. Make an ink that lasts about a year. And then mark me so I can have the time and space to get sane again. Let me be for now temporarily Cained.
Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash
