My dad once said that all fear is linked to the one ultimate fear - death itself. Having spent some time in the dentist today I have to say that I think he is right. I have had a fear of the dentist for a long time now, ever since I felt that deep shame which can only be experienced when a dental practitioner peers inside your mouth, inside YOU, and disapproves of what she sees. It's a shame that sticks, especially when the experience often costs significant money.
Behind this shame is a deeper fear in my case. The real pain of seeing the dentist is not of the financial sort but is the nagging realisation that in seeing the dentist I am forced to come into contact with my own mortality. Most days I can hide from the cold, hard truth that I will one day die. I feel pretty healthy most of the time and so I don't experience the shadow of death following me around. Except when I see the dentist.
The dentist teaches me that I am not perfect, that I only have a very limited time on this earth. In fact, I am not physically capable of living for a very long time. My teeth won't allow it. At this rate I won't have any beyond the age of 50, or so I am led to believe. Either way I cannot escape the truth that I am not going to be here forever. This is no trivial reality. We all have to get there at one time or another and it is not a very pleasant place to live.
The question is what do we do with this new information? Do we run from it by getting all the treatments that money can buy; new teeth, new boobs and a new hair cut? Do we buy a new wardrobe to hide some of the imperfections? Or do we face it head on with God?
I want to choose the latter. My teeth are not perfect and one day I will die, but in the midst of this crisis I want to choose to be thankful for what I have been given, rather than ruing what I wish I was. I don't have the perfect anything, certainly not the mind or body that I wish I did, but God has made me this way and I can be no other.
The good news of course is that one day I will get another run at this thing called life and I will be given a totally new body and a totally new set of pearly whites, which will never decay. Perhaps they're made from the same stuff they make the pearly gates from, who knows? Either way, God has a plan to resurrect me and place me back on this earth with the kind of body that Jesus got after his dying and rising. This truth - for those willing to accept it - is the end of fear.
God will not abandon us to the grave. We were made for eternity and we will one day live within it. Amen.
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