Empathy

With my job ending this week, I had to make a long-procrastinated trip to the dentist before my dental insurance ran out. My old dentist had retired and I'd just not gotten around to finding a new one until now.

Unfortunately, it turns out that after a lifetime of zero cavities (thanks Mom and Dad - all those years of sugar deprivation paid off) my luck had run out. Or maybe it's because I started eating chocolate in Switzerland after my last round with a dentist.

I'm not one of those people who panics in the chair. I never had a bad experience - when I had my wisdom teeth out, I just told the guy to put me under general and have at it. The worst part was the needle for the anesthesia.

Now those of you who remember my post on needles know that I don't have any love for that remarkable medical instrument. Heroin addicts mystify me in the extreme.

So when the dentist came at me today with shot after shot after shot after shot (after shot - did I mention a lot of shots?) of anesthetic, I was wishing I'd brought my mommy. What was I thinking, going alone? (Hey Mom - what are you doing Thursday afternoon - I have to go back so he can do the OTHER side!) By the time he was done, I was shaking so hard that I couldn't see or figure out the controls on the massage chair. The drill? Didn't bother me a bit. It's just those awful needles. Didn't matter that they'd done a good job on the surface numbing first so that I couldn't feel a single prick. And the dentist was good at making sure I couldn't see the instrument of death in his hand, even though I masochistically tried to look. Just the knowledge that this thing was stabbing at me for so darned long was beyond terrorizing.

You know that phrase, "cold with fear"? Well, despite the 70-degree weather outside, I was freezing. Thank goodness, I never had a moment of pain. But gracious me, the blocker they used for my upper jaw was so strong that I felt dizzy afterward, couldn't see out of my left eye, and had to kill some time there before I tried driving.

This experience was both kind of funny and yet gave me a deeper sense of empathy with people who deal with this every day of their lives. The novocaine numbed the entire left side of my face. I couldn't even blink or sniff on that side for almost four hours. Unbelievable. I felt (and looked) like a stroke victim... Greta VanSusteren and Barbara Walters have my major respect for going on TV looking and feeling like this. I couldn't feel to put lipstick on even while looking in a mirror - I didn't know I needed to feel anything for that. My lips were crooked and I couldn't smile at all. When I went to the store on the way home, I could feel people looking strangely at me when our eyes met in the aisles. I didn't want to talk to anyone. There was an unusually attractive man in line ahead of me (that never happens), and I just wanted to hide.

When I got home, I went for my comfort tea... only to discover that I could only slurp it on my right side. I couldn't drink without dribbling, and I don't think a straw would have helped. How do stroke victims drink their tea?

So all this to say, I really, really appreciate having an unremarkable face. Some months ago, my skin broke out horribly for two weeks after a facial. It was so hard and embarrassing to go anywhere in public (I thought about how nice it would be to have a paper bag over my head), and it increased my compassion for people I know who have struggled with their skin. It made me more grateful and aware that fallen bodies do stuff that isn't necessarily a person's fault... and people have to live with that and build up their confidence somehow. It's so good to know that even though "man looks on the appearance", "the Lord does not look at the things man looks at... the Lord looks on the heart." (1 Sam. 16:7)

As my empathy for people was so intense today, I thought also about the largely Catholic concept of lifting up our sufferings for the sake of Jesus and for the sake of others. In Mother Teresa's new biography, "Come Be My Light", she writes to her Archbishop about how she had come up with the idea of partnering each of her Sisters with someone who was too ill to join the Missionaries of Charity. I read it today as I sat in the dentist's office, waiting for the anesthesia to wear off enough for me to drive. Check this out:

"I have started with the sick a spiritual relationship. Every Sister has a second self - to pray and suffer for her - and the Sisters share their good works and prayers with her. I have some in England, Brussels, Antwerp, Switzerland, Calcutta, who have joined, men, women and children. There are now 18 on the list. It is their prayers and sufferings that are blessing our [work]. It makes them so happy to suffer for somebody - to be a Missionary of Charity - though they be blind, lame, [have] tuberculosis, crippled, having cancer. Often when I find the work very difficult - I offer the suffering of these my children and I find help comes at once." (p.153)

It is a wonderful thing to offer our infirmities and hurts and suffering to the Lord for the sake of His Body, to remind us to pray for others and share fellowship with them, to 'share in the fellowship of Christ's suffering', and to lay down our lives for His glory and His purposes.

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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,
Who comforts us in all our affliction
so that we will be able to comfort those
who are in any affliction
with the comfort with which we ourselves
are comforted by God.
~2 Corinthians 1:2-4

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