Grind: I Am Easy To Please
And he found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and smote a thousand men therewith.
About 8 months ago my dentist noted that because of the clenching of my jaw he was starting to see wear and tear on my teeth and a deterioration of my jaw. He noted that if it didn't stop I was on a course to losing functioning of my jaw in my later years and having some consequences on my teeth.
The idea of sipping dinner through a straw repulsed me....so....
I made a conscious decision that day to stop clenching my jaw in an attempt of mind over matter. Two months ago, six months after the previous dental appointment, the dentist noted that I my jaw and teeth were on the way to improvement. I had reversed the decline.
8 months ago he essentially recommended that I buy a $ 200 mouthpiece to keep the grinding from wearing down the jaw and teeth. I told him that I had a two dollar mouthpiece from the sporting goods store that essentially did the same thing. It was just a case of using it. He made some comment that it lacked the level of discreteness to do the job. I knew that the point was to keep the top jaw/teeth and lower jaw/teeth from coming into contact and by that standard, my mouthpiece fit the bill.
He had not a reply. As it is, I have not used the mouthpiece. I am just aware of my tendency to clamp down my jaw and don't do it, even when sleeping.
200 bucks! And we wonder why our insurance bills are so high. The tyranny of third party payments as my mentor Walter Williams notes. When someone else is paying the bills in a profit-making enterprise (even if non-profit, someone is stuffing cash down their pants), there is little incentive to check costs. College tuition, health care, defense spending. If we go to a single-payer system, we will face other problems. The only way out is to make people pay for most of their own health care and use insurance only for catastrophic events that would break the back and bank. Same thing will college tuition. Markets work but not mixed markets. The old clay and iron idea.
The "Defense" industry, live by the sword, die by it. Our might don't make us right.
Clenching my teeth became a metaphor with how I dealt with life for a long, long time. Trials and adversity came, I dug deep and ground it out. It is said that if all you have is a hammer then everything becomes a nail and you pound it down. But, a hammer has also the side of it to pull nails out. Like a pencil and eraser, pulling is also a legitimate function, not just the pounding and pushing.
A few days ago, a friend of mine who was road-tripping with his Fam back to Vermont (where he grew up and where his parents still live) made a vid that he posted to Facebook of he and his wife cranking out a Jawbone Hill CD in the car and him asking his young son to say "Jawbone Hill" while the CD/MP3 played in the background.
It reminded me of this great local band in the Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) subculture that was truly a cut above most of the genre musically and lyrically. When I purged 90% of my Christian Books and about the same percentage of CCM CDs, when moving and its immediate aftermath, Jawbone Hill's two CD's survived my purging. I still remember JH playing a show at the old Cafe Angst coffee shop in Lancaster and a hat being passed to pay the band that had a buck or two in it at the end of the passing. Really a poor restitutionary model. JH deserved better. I think the proprietor passed that hat around again and made a pointed comment about the band needing to be compensated.
It wasn't that 90% of these purged products in my personal collection were complete junk. I think it is dishonoring to the musicians and writers to diss their work. It just didn't speak to me anymore. It had served its purpose but now it was time to let go of most of it so that only the precious metal could shine. I didn't want to hold onto the past and getting rid of the books and CD's became a tangible action that did this. I have little interest in further participating in the Christian Circle-Jerk Cabal of Commercialism. Even the best message and meaning get threatened by the love of money. That's just the way it is...the higher you go in the company and corporate structure, the more craven it gets.
Jesus in the Temple...tables turned. Den of Thieves. Not much has changed in change.
Song # 9 on their album Grind is "Easy to Please." The lyrics go that the singer "Is easy to please, it's alright, don't worry about me. Show me my bed." That ministers to me. I have been reading a motivational self-help book and I am disturbed by its chronic reference to money and materialism being the arbiter of dream accomplishment. Don't get me wrong. I am glad to be paid well to do what I do but I reside in a very modest neighborhood, drive a ten year old car, and live below my means. Who the F# do I need to impress?
So, here I am at 52.5 years of age trying to be content but not complacent. I still have dreams, particularly in terms of my writing, but I am not pressing and pushing so much. I have seen the danger of pushing myself past the brink. Less uptight Martha who seemingly is compelled to work hard for a standard that Jesus himself doesn't hold. More Mary. More God. Less duty, more desire for what is truly good. Space. Peace. Margin. I was going to go on a rant how perfectionism is at root a pride issue but I demure. But its dangers are a lack of gratitude when things don't line up the way we had hoped. And a lack of gratitude is very dangerous.
Samson, from where the verse at the top comes from, made a series of poor decisions that then required him to go to battle versus the Philistines. If he had used more discretion and better decision-making, such heroics would have been unnecessary. Not picking up the jawbone of an ass. Letting it go.
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