Rinse, spit and pray: Reflections during root canal

• Published December 31, 2008

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Enduring major dental work is like deathbed repentance. It doesn't matter how much money you've made, how big your house is, or how successful your business has become; you just wish you had flossed more.

Sitting tense under the dentist's drill grinding out an emergency root canal Dec. 23, I felt repentant. The smell of burning tooth enamel has a humbling effect. After the trauma, my temporary crown's molded plastic drove me crazy. Trapped food underneath it and pervasive pain dissuaded my eating and threatened to ruin the holiday, while my ruined attitude threatened everyone's holiday. Christmas Eve, snowed-in, I was driven to my knees.

Isn't that always the case? God must get pretty sick of me waiting until a crisis to offer a truly sincere prayer. "Oh, big surprise," He says to Himself, "Jill's in a crisis." He must feel like a college student's parent, "Yup, Junior's calling — must need some money."

The funny thing about crisis prayer is: it works. My average, daily prayers are probably so trite and superfluous that I'm lucky if God doesn't fall asleep during the prayer before I do. I can almost see those words playing Pong between the ceiling and floor of my room. In a crisis, though, earnest words spoken in humility speed straight to heaven. The prayer's results are not unlike a parent's wire of funds to buy a fiscally irresponsible college kid's medication.

Let's be honest. I didn't ask God that my root canal pain and irritation would magically disappear. I prayed that I could suddenly take it, tackle it, handle it. It worked, and thankfully, because my dentist's office didn't reopen until Dec. 30.

Why do some of us let our God-rapport lapse to cordiality or even joke status and then crumble to our knees in a breakdown? I suspect I could have avoided the breakdown had my deity-connection been more secure. How many sitcoms and movies have reenacted the same humorous and pathetic scene, "Dear God, I know I haven't spoken to you for a long time, but ... ."

I wonder if crisis prayers in America have increased as crises have arisen lately in quick succession with economic collapse, natural cataclysm and social instability threatening our populace.

I'm not the only American on her knees. The Dec. 5 Washington Times ran a Jennifer Harper story titled, "Study: Americans pray just to get through the day." The article details a recent Brandeis University study reporting that 90 percent of Americans pray daily and half pray several times per day.

After a particularly heart-felt prayer (too often crisis-inspired), my problems don't evaporate, but my inability to manage them does. A plan of action always solidifies, either in my mind or through the help of someone else. The prayer predicates a hope that I can take it, tackle it, handle it. This Christmas, I can thank God for a root canal with complications that forced me to remember—again—that He offers more than a tired parent's "I told you so." He offers peace of mind.

Mahatma Gandhi said, "Prayer is not an old woman's idle amusement. Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action."

Is it myth? Who cares? It works.

Jill Wellock, a local freelance writer, serves on The Olympian's Board of Contributors and can be reached at mjwellock@aol.com.