Day 9: A Lesson in Humility

"You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye."  (Lk 6:42)

Pardon me if this entry gets a little gross but in some strange way this is how God chose to speak to me today.

Under duress, people who know me would eventually get over their politeness and admit to the fact that one could drive a minivan through the gaps in my teeth.  And not just the top ones, but the bottom ones too (and the bottom ones are important to this story).  On top of that, I have this little issue with calculus (not math in this case, but I did have a major issue with that too.).  I could go to the dentist tomorrow and it would not matter. I would still get this disgusting build-up on the backs of the bottom of my front teeth by the time I got back in the car.  This morning, about an hour into my fast, I noticed this exact thing happening.  Now, despite what images of me this blog may conjure, I am generally not a scrupulous person, but I am so serious about this whole Lenten Ramadan thing that I don't want to take any chances in breaking the fast if I can help it.  As I understand it, nothing can intentionally enter your mouth or the fast is broken.  So, and here's the gross part, I decided not to reach in and scrape it loose with a finger nail because that would have very much been intentional.

This thing annoyed the heck out of me all day long.  I tried all morning in vain to jar it loose with my tongue.  It was bothering me as I went to the chapel to pray and just as I was thinking how tomorrow morning I am definitely going to floss before sunrise to avoid this type of dilemma in the future, the above passage from Luke popped into my mind.  That's when I decided that I would have to come to peace with my oral hygiene issue.  That's also when decided that I would swallow my pride and write about the cavernous gaps between my teeth.  Because I am okay with it.  It is who I am.  And it just might do me good to accept what some may consider a minor physical abnormality in order to learn a lesson in humility.

I've always been drawn to and challenged by Jesus' saying about the speck and the log.  It's hard for me to admit when I'm wrong with my wife, my kids and my students, but I have little problem seeing the mistakes of others that offend me so greatly.  In fact, I am struggling with this very issue right now with someone in my personal life.

Today, my speck wasn't in my eye but in my tooth.  I am the furthest thing from perfect.  I can be downright selfish and I often am.  My ego too often calls the shots.  I am, in short, a hypocrite.  (I will blog at a later time about the internal battle I am having about blogging publicly on fasting in light of Jesus' commentary in Matthew 6 regarding the behavior of "the hypocrites.")  But humility isn't about feeling bad about oneself.  That's humiliation.  Humility isn't about berating oneself.  That's masochism.  Humility is about recognizing the value of others above oneself.  I am not humiliated by my teeth.  I am not beating myself up about them either. But today they became the vehicle for God to grant me this important insight . . . if only I paid as much attention to the needs of others for even a single moment as much as I did to that stupid tartar stuck in my teeth all day long, then I would actually be understanding and living in the Kingdom of God.

Now a couple of comments on the practical . . .

• Mr. Crabby Pants Strikes Again.  In fact, I have not gotten any better with this since Day 7.  It has been four days running since Daylight Savings Time and the extra hour of daylight and I have become no less of a bear in the evenings.  I am fine all day, but this fast really gets hard in the late afternoon/early evening.  From about 5:00 until sunset you had better just stay out of my way.  That is not good.  That is not the purpose of fasting.  I need to work and pray on this because it is not fair to the people who love me.

• Dates are good.  No, not that kind of date . . . I'm married.  It is traditional during Ramadan, at the bare minimum, to eat a couple of dates before sunrise if one is not eating anything else.  Likewise, even if one cannot eat a meal immediately after sunset, one should break the fast as soon as possible by, at least, eating a date.  Yesterday I picked up some dates in case I needed them to break the fast.  This evening I went with Aidan to his Cub Scout meeting which lasted until after sunset.  I took a bottle of water and the dates along with me so I could drink and eat them at 7:32 sharp.  The best thing I ate all day!  Oh, and after I swigged some water and gobbled a date, I promptly dislodged that damned thing from my tooth.

• Happy St. Patrick's Day!  To all my Irish friends, most notably my lovely wife, a happy celebration of the conversion of Ireland!  I always make Irish stew on March 17 and, given the circumstances, it was particularly delicious today.  The Guinness isn't half bad either.

• March Madness.  I have to admit I went with my heart in my brackets . . . Go Boilermakers!