Dentist

Yesterday I went to the dentist.

My official position on this is that 'I hate the dentist'.  I am not alone in thinking that of course.

This is wrong in a number of ways. 

For a start, my dentist is very nice.  She's funny and, as far as I can tell, she's good at her job.  So I don't hate my dentist at all.  Perhaps, instead, I hate going to my dentist.

But that is wrong-headed too.  I'm afraid my teeth are not in the condition of the ones in the mirror above but at least this time there was no work to be done.  To find that out, and have them cleaned, and come away with change from a £20.00 note - it's hardly the worst thing in my week.  Perhaps I hate being treated by my dentist.

This too is crazily wrong.  Frankly, I have had most of my dental treatment at short notice when I have been desperate to be treated by my dentist.  It is closer to the truth to say I hate not being treated by my dentist - the kind of dread that comes with a worrying crunch on something hard when away on holiday.  Perhaps it's just the thought - I hate the thought of being treated by my dentist.

But no.  That thought is a great privilege as I walk past my dentist's surgery as I often do.  Along the road from her is my doctor's surgery, down from there the hospital (just past the pharmacies).  To walk to all four and home again would be about two miles.  How many places in the world is that possible?

I don't hate my dentist at all.  I hate having bad teeth sometimes.

And when somebody says the hate God or Jesus (or probably even the Church) they probably mean they hate not being righteous - only they never think about it long enough to work it through.

Last

The invoice makes it seem so very ordinary.  It blandly states,

28 May 2010  Posterior Composite Filling Lower Left Molar

I have been very blessed to have a dentist as a friend!  It goes without saying that he did not become a friend by being my dentist - that's about as likely as making friends by being a Traffic Warden - but having become a friend he became my dentist (and stayed my friend - perhaps even that is difficult!).

Thursday was disconcerting.  A relatively useful day fell apart as a result of an apricot.  It doesn't happen to everyone, and I've had several uneventful apricot encounters over the years, but this one ended with part of the previously mentioned molar sticking closely to the apricot instead of to itself.  A broken tooth!  A phone call.  A Friday drive to my friend's surgery.  A read of the National Geographic in the waiting room.  The most enormous drilling sound - no, it was alright, just a gardener next door power sawing a rhododendron bush!  The smiling welcome.  The chair (aargh).  The light.  The inspection and confirmation of the evil apricot's misdemeanour. "Shall I fill it now?"  The grimaced "Yes, please". Then,

"You're my last ever patient"

Some of the potential threat from such a claim was mitigated by me knowing that some time in the next month or so my dentist was moving over to a teaching post.  But it doesn't take much to set the mind racing in a dentist's chair.  My mind raced between two poles. 

Maybe this was his least important filling ever.  After all whatever happened it would be some other dentist that would next work on my molars. 

Or was it his most important filling ever?  A whole dental career leading to the grand terminus of one of my lower left molars.

Like good professionals everywhere he just filled the tooth as he would have done any other day.  And, having told me not to eat for a couple of hours, departed into post-patient paradise to eat with his staff in celebration.  I wasn't sure what to say as a patient in such historic circumstances, but of course with a numbed mouth saying nothing much was most suitable.

I am fantastically grateful to my dentist.  I vaguely feel the dastardly apricot let me in to a privileged moment.

What I know more certainly is that when on the cross my Lord said, IT IS FINISHED, he really was describing the finale that everything about him had led towards.  Not only the most important moment in his life, purpose and future, the most important moment for me and my dentist too.