"Everything's Amazing And No One Is Happy"

So I'm back from the dentist...just the cleaning by the non-gentle hygenist. I had declined the $10,000 (or thereabouts) x-ray that the hygenist insisted I needed. So she went and tattled to the big cheese, the dentist himself, who came and gave a 2 second poke and prod (one second each) and gravely told her, "put a 'watch' on #18, lower." I'm not worried though. I saw right through their little game: all of it was just a ruse to get me to beg them for an x-ray.

As I lay there with this woman's latex-gloved hands in my space-invaded mouth, I gave in to the thoughts of how much I hate this. I know we all hate the poking and scraping and poking and invasion of the personal space and the poking and the spit-sucking tube...and the poking. I remember thinking, "Ugh, this is so irritating to live in this broken world where Entropy rules and we do our feeble best to stem the tides of tartar, plaque and tooth decay." *grumble, grumble*

Janie and I just watched an episode of the 19th Century British-against-the-French series called Sharpe (with Sean Bean as Major Richard Sharpe, if you know him. Our library has the whole 16 dvd series). This one character, Sharpe's Irish right-hand man named
Harper, had a really bad toothache, and he wasn't much use on the battle field as they fought against Napoleon's army. Finally, Sharpe commanded some of his men to hold Harper down while he (Sharpe) attempted to yank that bad tooth with his bare, hygiene-deficient hands. We winced as we watched the gruesome (yet kind of funny) scene. Of course, he botched it badly and Harper himself roared, "gimme them pliers!" He miserably grabbed the tooth and, with much agony and blood, ripped the thing out of his own head. It was awful.

I of course thought of that scene this morning and I had to catch myself as I looked around the room: the place was immaculate, the tools she used were cleaned (sterilized even), the chair was comfy (I've always wanted one for home), there was electricity, the place was climate controlled, the staff were all professional and courteous, and though we take it for granted, the technology is amazing: even basic x-rays that can look inside your head without the dentist having to cut you open to have a look - even those are digital and instantaneous. Plus, I got a free toothbrush.

We should be happier about going to the dentist.

All of that made me remember someone had showed me this guy who was on Conan (I don't watch late night tv, honest) who made a really good point: "Everything's amazing and no one is happy."

It's funny and poignant:



We are spoiled brats, aren't we? Our expectations are ridiculous. Shame on us.

I don't want to react to things like malfunctioning cell phones or long airport lines or dummies at four-way stops or grocery cart stupidity....or even dentists so negatively anymore. I don't want to add to the ugliness that this world already has plenty of. I instead want to, in the words of  Sara Groves, "add to the beauty." I want to better learn love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). I can't do it without the Holy Spirit...it's His fruit, after all, so I want to get on board with His program. So, here goes:
1, 2, 3 .............THE DENTIST IS AMAZING!

There I said it...time to start believing it!