Jesus The Dentist

MMMMMMM...minty. This was the thought that entered and exited my mind susinctly after a 3 inch needle was jammed into my jaw rendering unmerited pain throughout the face.

And then numbnesss.

You know, dental work isn't a bad racket. For the ones behind the needle of course. The deal goes something like this: If you ram needles the size of those fat toothpicks you can get at old 70's diners into my mouth and use tiny hooks to pry my gums away from my teeth and spray me in the eyeball with lukewarm water and warp my cheeks with over powered vacuum tubes I will give you no less than $487 dollars.

I do believe the only appropriate response from any dentist worth his dental school tuition will replay with an emphatic "with pleasure."

I write all of this with the standard post dental visit two-faced feeling. Half of my face - just fine. The other half, well it doesn't exist. I can see it in the mirror of course but...you get the idea. This leads me to run my tongue along the numb inner side of my cheek and flick it off the edge of my mouth making a juicy, flapping sound.

It's not that I enjoy the sound, it's just that I want to make sure it's still there.

All of this , for no explainable reason, brings me back to a line of thinking I had early this week. It could be easily stated that one who truly follows the ways of Jesus has some sort of twisted addiction to pain and discomfort. I find that the more I want to follow Jesus the more he introduces me to these things that terrify me the most. It's a process of deconstruction I suppose. You find that you've been running away from these things your whole life and never knew it until you walk beside Jesus and he mentions some of them. Which makes me think that Jesus is somewhat socially inept. I mean that isn't exactly pleasant dinner conversation. I wonder if Jesus ever talked about the weather?

And then he tells you to run straight for those terrifying things in your life. "Face your fears" type of thing.

Which leads me to the idea that Jesus isn't a very cozy person. If you think he is you probably don't know him all that well. If you think you want to know him just be prepare for stinging needles and a vacuum thrusted down your throat as a warm and calculated voice tells you to "tilt your head and close your mouth cause this is going to get messy."