vitalwholeness

I actually have a favorable view of going to my regular teeth cleaning with the dental hygienist. She does a good job, the procedure is relatively painless, and I know her on a first-name basis. We discuss children and make small talk and even know some of the more important things about our lives. Not too long after my wife Kathy died, she gave me a phone call, her voice cracking on the other end of the line. At such times, those kinds of gestures make a big difference. So do random emails and handwritten cards that show up in the mailbox.

After the final flossing we compared signals on which type of Thanksgiving pie occupies most favored status. We basically divided humanity into two camps: the pumpkin pie people and everyone else. Because we fell into the pecan and mincemeat tribe, that meant that we were rooting for the same team. Out of those declarations of pie loyalty, an inner-office pie poll began as a result, and it short order true colors were revealed, the unvarnished truth of closely held pie secrets. Do you like your pumpkin with whipped cream on top? After Thanksgiving do you eat pie for breakfast? Are you willing to pucker up and eat the Gooseberry pie that Aunty Mae brings every year?

Somewhere in the middle of all this frivolity my dentist came in for the post-cleaning check. Everything seemed in order. A quick look and I was declared ready to go forth into the world until the next cleaning. When he made mention of the holidays and what Kathy and I were planning, I realized he hadn’t heard yet. It happens. News of a death gets out unevenly and some hear it before others. More than once, I have had to share the sad news on the spot. That usually leaves the other person not only sad but in an awkward position. How could I have not known? I am so sorry.

But my dentist is different. He is a man dripping with empathy, the real kind without pretense. He is also a person of faith, the kind that just naturally oozes out of his pores because it is part of him. When he asked, Can I pray with you, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world, and right there reclining in the chair I said yes without a second thought. He pulled down his mask, laid his hand on my shoulder, and with my friend the hygienist bowing her head in the background, a treatment suite suddenly became a chapel.

His prayer was more a blessing than anything else, but prayers and blessings are first cousins. He gave thanks for Kathy. He prayed for my encouragement and how grief might turn into gratitude. He blessed me with thoughts of a love-surrounded Thanksgiving and Christmas that could heal wounded places. At the end of those gracious words, he said Amen. And I said, Thank you, I needed that.

As he left my room and headed down the hallway to the next patient, it might have been to a filling or root canal that he went. But for me, that day, he was more than a professional provider. He was a roving chaplain.

Jovial conversations about pie preferences continued all the way out to the reception desk. But what really hovered around me was the blessing in the chair.

We certainly find the ministrations of the spirit in places and persons designed for such things – churches, temples, shrines, and religious leaders on their rounds. But where we need to keep our eyes peeled is on the unpredictable zones, in the millions of cracks, corners, and crevices of this world where the sacred is hiding and waiting to snag us by surprise. Like in a dentist’s chair.