The road to the dentist is paved with good intentions.

I was grinding my teeth. I’m not sure what caused my abrasive mastication. Perhaps I was envisioning an encounter with an irritating co-worker; or, perhaps I was reliving a long wait at the doctor’s office. Whatever was going on, I was asleep; and I squeaked.

That was my wife’s claim. “Squeaky, Squeaky, all night long,” she said pointing to my choppers. “You grind your teeth.”

I knew I ground but was a little shocked at the squeaking. Surely that could not be good for my teeth. I decided to visit the dentist. He might be able to suggest some sort of mouth guard to preserve my teeth for a few more years.

The dentist’s office smelled like a dentist’s office. You know that awful scent of fluoride mixed with bubble gum mixed with the hot dry smell that can only be burnt enamel. The waiting room was further scented with fear as we patients considered our likely fate.

A little girl in the next seat tried desperately to convince her mother that she was fine and didn’t need a check-up. I felt the same way but my mom was no where around for me to argue with. I had decided to come to Doc Tooth’s Torture Fun House on my own. I sat and contemplated my feet wondering if I could convince them that I was ok and leaving was a better option.

My last trip to Doc Tooth had been several years before when my wisdom teeth needed pulling. They were hurting me; so I found Doc and asked for help. He was happy to oblige.

His grin was devilish as he said, “Most dentists would send this out to a dental surgeon, but me, I like pulling wisdom teeth. You know, I played football in college, so I’ve got the upper body strength to yank them right out.”

He leaned me back, put his knee on my chest and said, “Open wide!”

The device went in and the pressure on my chest increased. Doc wrapped both hands around the handle to get a stronger grip. Crack! Crack! Crack! The sound exploded from my mouth as my head jerked to and fro. Another one of those Faustian grins lit up Doc’s face as he pulled the bloody molar from my mouth.

“One More to go!” He exclaimed and dove back in.

Now I was back and re-living that wonderful memory. A door opened and a perky young sadist poked her head out and said, “Mr. Coussens.” She grinned and waved me in.

The condemned followed her to her chair, a torture device for the ages. She poked me, prodded me, and put sharp sticks in my mouth pretending them to be x-ray film. “Bit down on this,” she smiled, and I felt the cardboard slice into my gums. Finally, she had exhausted the immediate torture tools and announced, “Doc Tooth will see you in a moment.”

Have you ever noticed that the dentist office is a bit like a car repair shop? No matter what you go in for, they still want to lube your chassis and replace your pads. If you’re really unlucky they will have found a cavity, or six.

The hygienist came back and said, “Doc will be a few more moments, but I need to talk to you. You need a good cleaning and your gums are looking bad, we need to irrigate them.”

I rubbed my x-ray tormented jaw and said, “My gums are already pretty irritated, you really don’t need to do more.” Then I grinned to show that I wasn’t afraid of her.

She frowned back at me, “Irrigate, Mr. Coussens. It’s not covered by your insurance, but it’s very important.” She raised her eyebrows expectantly.

I had not yet learned my car lesson, “Will my wheels actually fall off or my engine blow up? If not it can wait.” Lacking that experience, I nodded dumbly at her.

Doc Tooth came in shortly after. He poked, prodded, and scratched. Then he said, “Well there are a few spots to watch, but no procedures today.” Pausing a moment he tried to cheer me up. “At least you’re not in pain.”

The pain was yet to come. After the cleaning and the irrigating I was ready to weep. When I saw the bill my eyes actually welled with tears. Later that night, I realized I had forgotten to ask the doctor about the teeth grinding. I think I’ll wait quite a while to get that solved.

Something in this experience did strike a note with me. Tooth cleaning is one thing; but heart cleaning is another. Each day we have an opportunity to meet with Doc Heart, whose real name is Jesus, and have him look us over. Mother isn’t there to prompt us; we have to go on our own. It can be painful. It can be more costly than we anticipated when we sat down in the chair. In the end though, we come out white and shining. Our smile is brighter. Our heart is lighter. Our lives are made whole.

The Death of the Fist Bump

I remember when Michael Jackson’s “Bad” hit the music stores. For Generation X, bad was good and cool was cliche. We loved our parents but they truly did not understand our culture or who we were. We barely understood it ourselves.

Bad went to Rad which later became Random. Each time the previous term became gauche and dropped out of common usage among the young. I never saw when Bad went bad or Rad deteriorated into nothing, but I believe I have spotted the death of the fist bump.

One night, as I was busily typing away on some manuscript or another, I heard my wife exclaim, “No way!”

I looked up at her and she waved me over saying “Watch this.”

She rewound the TV as I walked over and sat down. The evening news was on. The anchorman had made a spontaneous and slightly funny comment. Laughing, the weatherman leaned over and the unthinkable happened. They fist bumped. This wasn’t two athletes on the field celebrating a great play or two college men over laughing over beers. This was a pinstriped grey-haired regional anchorman and a double breasted white haired weatherman. The foundation of the fist bump was cracking.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised; that wasn’t the first odd fist bump on television. Obama and his wife bumped on national TV after winning the Democratic presidential nomination back in 2008. Such national exposure could only serve to drive the practice into the hands of those who never had business fist bumping in the first place. In fact, in response to the Obama bump, Time magazine actually did an article on “A brief history of the fist bump.”

Ultimately, I knew I was watching the final days of this gesture when my friend, Lenny, walked into our men’s bible study the other night and bumped fists with every man there. I think I was the youngest fellow in attendance and I left my college days behind a decade and half ago. We all grinned as we amused ourselves with the youthful greeting.

What is in a touch? A pat, a hand shake, or a fist bump can go a long way to drawing others into your life. It is especially powerful in America where we Americans live in a world of relatively little physical contact. If you are not a hugger, one who comes up and gives unsolicited hugs, you could very well find yourself going for a week at a time with zero physical contact from anyone other than your wife and kids.

Part of this, I think, is because we are so self-absorbed. We can fake our way through a how-are-you-fine greeting without ever actually having to slow down and connect to the person. A handshake is a request for information. It requires focus and intent; offering one without focus is a clear and unmistakable insult. When a hand is extended in earnest and eyes meet there is an exchange that says, “Hello, you are important enough to me to stop my normal course, abort my hurried day, and stop to greet you.”

I remember my first day in Sunday school in 8th grade. I decided to go to church. I walked into the room and was introduced around. After the teacher took first honors, every young man in that room shook my hand and greeted me. The impression was powerful: This circle of young men really cared about me and they didn’t even know me. I was hooked.

As a Christians, we should try an experiment. Any time we meet someone, the first time for a day, every day, reach out to them physically. Smile and reach out a hand. Solicit a handshake or, if you can make it work, a fist bump. It’s awkward, because other than initial meetings most of us don’t do this. Our friends and co-workers will wonder what we’re doing as we’ve never done it before. Now here’s the opportunity, ask how they are doing and mean it. We won’t likely get a response, because they won’t expect it. The thing they will understand, however, is that we care.

Universal Complexity

I have a great respect for novelists. It is not only the length of the work but also its breadth and complexity that amaze me. We readers see only a tiny fraction of the writer’s world; we see the scenes viewed through a window frame. Beyond that frame’s limited scope the world is far larger. To have more depth than a cardboard cutout, writers create people and places that cast shadows across the rest of the story without coming into our line of sight. Often, the unseen part of the work is as big as or bigger than what we can see.

Fantasy and Science Fiction provide even greater challenges. Not only do the story elements have to be defined but, as the reader has no shared frame of reference, the author must create an entire world. Each detail preconceived by the author is a thread building a firm foundation for the novel. The deeper the world is understood, the more real the story seems.

Miraculously complex and beautiful worlds have been designed by authors such as Raymond E. Fiest, Isaac Asimov, and Anne McCaffrey but the master of the unseen was J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien’s tales are massively deep. Entire species and cultures are detailed. Maps and Music interweave the stories. Tolkien, a linguist, even chose to invent new languages to populate his world. It is hard not to attribute some of the stories power and longevity to its iceberg-like underlying foundation.

There is another author who exceeds Tolkien, the Author of life. I sometimes view God as a writer. It helps explain why he is omniscient. He is viewing history from the perspective of someone who has written and now is editing his great work. If he wants to remind himself what is going to happen on a certain date and time, he simply flips a few billion pages in the right direction. Like many writers, he chose to write himself into the book. In fact, he made himself the hero, riding in on a white horse to save the day in the last scene.

When I was watching Louie Giglio’s “Indescribable” the other day, it occurred to me that God’s back story trumps anything imaginable. The depth of the tale is bottomless. Our story has 9 billion main characters in the current chapter and God has noted each characteristic of each of these characters. He has written down for each and every person their height, their weight, their personality, their skin tone, their inseam length, and the total number of pores on their left pinky toe. The minor characters are equally well detailed including Fifi the French poodle, the large oak in the front yard, and the toilet seat cover in the third stall at the local high school. More amazing still, God has also defined the unseen world, Schoerdinger’s proverbial Cat. We may not know what lies in the box, but God does. God has defined and named the billions of billions of stars in the universe. In each one of these, he has defined the planets, the mountains on those planets, the dirt that makes up those mountains, and the very quarks that make up the atoms that make up that dirt. Nowhere will we turn up a rock or look into the sky and find a blank and ambiguous reality. God’s pen strokes crossed there long ago and it is only up to us to find the meaning behind the lines.

Flump

Have you ever noticed that only children and dogs can flump? Somehow they turn their whole body to jelly and deposit themselves firmly yet gently on the ground. Flump! It’s similar to dropping an armful of laundry on the ground; it just seems to softly plop into a pile. When I try to do that I certainly do not flump. I crunch, crack, or crash. I wonder if it is simply age or has something to do with innocence.

Flumping looks so relaxing, so carefree. It’s really too bad that we adults are denied the flump. Can’t you just imagine getting done with a long stressful meeting, going back to your desk and flumping? You would allow the cares of the moment to drain from your body while simultaneously expressing your utter exhaustion. My son can express a range of moods while flumping: exhaustion, exasperation, frustration, and even anger. Alas, flumping is denied to me. When I try, I flop.

The problem with flopping is it is too stiff. A stiff fall accelerates. Acceleration is bad. If I were to flop after a stressful meeting, I am certain that my chair would not survive. The chair wouldn’t flump either, it would crash or crunch or both. Why am I so certain? I have attempted to flump before and have flopped. I was at my parent’s house. My son, my wife and I were playing on the guest bed. My son was laughing at me as I went for an exasperated flump. As a result, there is a new bed frame in that room.

My dog is the flump-master. He jumps up on some piece of furniture and sniffs it. Then he circles twice and collapses into a neat pile. His truly amazing mastery allows him to simulate something between a mound of laundry and a puddle of water. Like laundry or water you can gather it up and deposit it elsewhere. What you cannot do is push it. Pushing on something flumped causes it to ooze around whatever you are shoving with and spring back into place when the pressure ceases. You can literally move 98 percent of my persistent pup's body only to have it dribble right back into place when you stop pushing.

Children have similar talents. Have you ever been holding a recalcitrant child’s hand when they decide to flump? Somehow that little body you are leading from the candy isle has put on 42 pounds and turned to the consistency of cooked spaghetti. Either the child’s hand is yanked from your own or he is left dangling, suspended like a hanged man, slowly rotating in the wind as his head lolls to one side. You try to pull the miscreant to his feat and say, “Stand up.” The only response is a cut of his eyes towards you and the continued spaghetti emulation.

Adults do flump in one way though. We can flump spiritually. We decide that we are where we should be and puddle in place. Then when a pastor or even God himself tries to push us along we refuse to move. We dangle spiritually. It often takes a total shift in our world before we get moving again. God picks us up and turns our world upside down.

I’ve spiritually flumped before, but now I am determined not to let myself become that relaxed. I want to charge forward, to keep chasing after God, and win the race he’s set for me.

Autopodophobia

One of my brothers suffers from gerentopodophobia, or the unreasonable fear of old peoples feet. While I imagine that this is not that uncommon a fear, it concerns me a bit. Once he gets to be older, it only follows that it will morph into autopodophobia, or the unreasonable fear of your own feet. This seems to me to be truly terrible problem. After all you can’t run away from your own feet!

Another concern is that such a weakness would be terribly exploited at family reunions. I have 4 brothers. The five of us and my dad are like a pack of wolves. Show weakness and the whole group piles on. It’s good natured, but it is still a little tough to take when your ears are being pulled in different directions and someone is gnawing on your tail. Foot fear would be ammunition that the pack would find irresistible. We are a cruel bunch. I can hear it now. “Hey brother, how’s business? Have you been getting your Foot in the door recently?” “I think your shoes are Toe-tally awesome!” “So tell me, is your kid following in your Footsteps?” The image is just not a pretty one.

Fraternal love, love between brothers, is mind-blowing. As the Word says, “It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down upon the collar of his robes.” It is a love that soaks through and anoints.

Part of fraternal love’s value is its rarity. Sometimes petty differences and senseless fights come between family members. This is something we can heal but often do not. Sometimes it is the sword brought by our faith in Christ that separates us. This is harder. Prayer and faith are our only real weapons to win our brothers if this is the separating gulf. Whatever the reason, brothers unified in faith and love are rare and precious.

Another part of this love is that our siblings usually see us with clearer eyes than anyone other than our spouse, our kids, and our parents. Our brothers provide a special perspective as temporal companions who see the world through experiences linked to our own. Neither our fathers and mothers nor our sons and daughters can duplicate their contemporaneous coexistence with us. They understand where we are coming from.

Finally, they are not our spouses. We don’t have to find oneness in them. They are not our “neged”, the one who opposes us and completes us at every point. We do not have to impress them. In the end, there is no obligation of love save what tradition dictates and even that can be ignored. Thus, many do not feel the need to develop and maintain relationships with the most immediate of their kin and brotherhood suffers.

When all these factors are thrust aside, when differences are put aside, when intimate bonds are formed between brothers and sisters, the blessed oil begins to flow. It permeates life and allows for a high priestly anointing to stand over that family. Thank God for my brothers who lift me up, brighten my life, and sometimes bite at my tail.

Pandora’s Jelly Jar

I have a serious problem, I am addicted to eating. I just cannot seem to stop. I suppose it is understandable, I come from a long line of eaters. We aren’t just your average eaters either, we are semi-professional quality. You can actually hear the whimpering when we approach the buffet line.

I’ve heard that Erasmus, the 16th century philosopher, got it wrong. Pandora didn’t open a box, she opened a storage jar. This makes sense to me, though it begs the question was it a pickle jar or a jelly jar? While Pandora’s Pickle Jar does seem daunting, I personally think that it was a jelly jar.

Can’t you just see the scene when Pandora popped the seal on that jar? First, two giant purple hands squeeze forth from the orifice. Next an ugly, bibulous head pops forth. Quickly after, the enormous remaining bulk oozes from the opening and the beast heaves itself upright. The jelly jar juggernaut slogs forth and in its wake from the jar bounces forth all sorts of delectable pieces of death. Lollipops bounce after donuts. Pizzas roll after cakes. Little ginger bread men charged out towards the unsuspecting world.

Perhaps, before Pandora did her dastardly deed, healthy food tasted irresistible. Spinach tasted like candy and even that vile weed, broccoli, was undeniably delicious. But is it possible that when the great tempter, the demon of gluttony, was released from Pandora’s Jelly Jar, he changed it all?

Is it so hard to believe, in our country rife with obesity and metabolic disorders, that something evil stalks us? Something that is twisted chases us with cake and baby-back ribs screaming, “Eat!” Later, it sneaks into our darkened rooms and whispers seductively about chocolate and cheesecake. In the dark night, the great purple beast bubbles laughter as it fattens us for slaughter.

One of my goals for this year is to slay Pandora’s spawn; to close the lid on the jelly jar demon forever. My strategy is to run it to death. I figure that the obese jelly-spawn is still chasing after me when I run, panting and dripping purple goo all the way. When I get back, my appetite is suppressed. Obviously, the beast is too tired to come after me. I can almost see him sprawled on the couch snoring loudly. He later tries to come back with a vengeance, but it is far easier to resist when I remember running my heart out earlier.

We each face and fight our personal demons. It takes rock hard perseverance and the hand of God to strengthen us. In the end, though, the battle is already won; we just have to persevere and stand to claim the victory.