First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany
"Flossing Your Teeth"
Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore October 8, 2000

SERMON

For the most part, I’ve always taken pretty good care of my teeth, brushing every day for about 3 minutes, the recommended time. I get regular checkups and usually don’t have cavities. My mother told me I inherited my strong, fluoride enhanced teeth from my grandfather who never had a cavity.My genetic disposition has made me a little prideful of my teeth. In the beginning of the 90’s I had started to take them for granted. I flossed irregularly and stopped brushing everyday. I broke the rhythm of my six month checkups when we moved to Florida in 1993.My gums were getting a little sore in our first year in Port Charlotte, and by chance I found out one of our babysitters worked during the day as a dental receptionist. She recommended I see the dentist she worked for who she felt was quite thorough in his work. Boy am I glad I did!His dental hygienist warned me that my mouth was in trouble. My gums were receding and I was in danger of loosing a tooth if I didn’t start taking better care of my teeth. The shocker came when she showed me that I had lost bone in my jaw between some of my teeth. I looked at the x-rays in horror at the missing bits of bone, feeling remorseful for my neglect. I vowed to do better. Not only would I brush and floss daily, I added the use of a pick to clean out some pockets in the gum and a proxy brush for some gaps between my teeth left behind by the bone loss.

I’m not going to ask for a show of hands, but I know there are people here who know they should take better care of their teeth. I include myself too. Attentive as I am to my teeth, I haven’t been able to get myself to brush more than once a day. A recent University of Michigan Dental Public Health study showed that while almost everyone brushed at least once a day, only one third of the sample flossed every day and fewer demonstrated acceptable flossing behavior. "Subjects who reported flossing their teeth frequently had significantly less plaque, gingivitis, and calculus, and shallower pocket depths between teeth and gum.

Based on this kind of research and the regular harangue by dental hygienists, flossing is pretty important. My hygienist explained to me that bacteria builds up between the tooth and gum irritates the gum. Even though I may not see any food particles in there, I still needed to floss to scrape off that bacteria to maintain gum health. Sure enough, as I started to floss, probe and proxy brush, my dental health improved dramatically. Now I regularly earn the praise of my hygienist. Bone loss is forever but gum health can be restored.

This process of self discipline has made a difference in my life. I identified a defect in my self care, persuaded myself of the value of making a change, and have seen the fruits of that change. I’m sure if I passed the microphone around this morning, many of you have your own stories of steps you have taken to improve yourselves. Given the tremendous popularity of self-help books, many of us are seeking ways to improve ourselves. We hear from every direction the message to eat more fruits and vegetables, stretch and exercise, meditate to reduce stress and get plenty of sleep. So I thought offering a sermon on self improvement would be well received.

After all, self improvement seems to me to be a core Unitarian idea. The catch phrase in the early 1800’s was, "salvation through the development of character." Rather than a depraved creature tainted with Original Sin, each of us has great goodness in us that can be developed, refined and practiced for the good of all. Onward and upward forever.

And we are in the days of awe between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur tomorrow. This is the time the Jewish people reflect on their transgressions during this past year and make amends with those they have harmed. Like our New Years, it is a good time to decide to make changes for the year 5761.So imagine my surprise at how poorly this sermon topic has been received. I don’t think anyone has come up to me to congratulate me on the choice of this topic and express strong interest in what I have to say. More commonly, I’ve been approached with suspicion wondering if my sermon will be interesting or whether it would be a good Sunday to invite a friend to attend. Must be the effect of all that finger scolding by dental hygienists.

Not everyone likes the idea of self-improvement. I was shocked during coffee hour when someone revealed to me, "I’ve abandoned self improvement at my age." I appreciate that there are times we must just accept ourselves for who and what we are, but I didn't think I'd be doing that until I was on my death bed.To figure out where I went wrong, I consulted my expert in my propensity for self delusion, my wife Philomena. I asked her what she thought was wrong with my sermonic topic, "Flossing Your Teeth." She put it to me this way, "Who do you think you are telling us to floss our teeth?"

Philomena is especially sensitive to my propensity for grandiosity. As I often do when Philomena offers me a character insight, I began pondering just who I thought I was. Probably drawing on the prophetic Biblical tradition, we ministers often feel licensed to make judgements and pronouncements about what congregations ought to do and not do. That license has gradually been revoked for liberal clergy as their parishioners have taken that authority upon themselves. We serve at the pleasure of our congregations, different from priests who are appointed by their bishop and are much freer with their judgement. We have to be a little more deliberative in our social witness. My authority to speak on the topic of self discipline is drawn from my own skill in this area. I’m constantly striving to improve myself by eating a healthy diet that is appropriate to the peculiarities of my body. I do meditation daily and my Tao of Practice exercise set regularly. This summer I took up running and we joined the YMCA this fall. I look for better and better ways to improve the effectiveness of my ministry. I’m careful about managing my stress level and setting aside time with my family. I seek a dynamic balance of all the factors in my life. That dynamic balance creates a harmonious experience of being alive that keeps me feeling peaceful, full of energy and attention. I feel moderately successful at this and want to share what I’ve learned with you. I thought flossing would be a good way to get into the subject of self improvement.

Philomena pointed out to me I have a "hyper-vigilant" personality. Basically, I’m a pretty driven person and always have been, much like my father. "The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree," Philomena observed. People like me have a particular way we respond to negative reinforcement as we strive for self improvement that is called egosyntonic.

Let me explain. We are not so different from Pavlov’s dogs when it comes to behavioral conditioning. When we get positive reinforcement for some effort, it feels good and reinforces the behavior. I write a thank you note to someone, they appreciate it and let me know, I’m motivated to write more thank you notes. Thank you notes, like flossing your teeth, take effort and may not be pleasurable as they are being written. If they were fun to write, it wouldn’t be such a fight to get kids to send them after Christmas to their grandmothers who love them. We endure the discomfort, the negative reinforcement for the behavior, because of the future benefit we expect. This is also called delayed gratification.

Type A personalities like mine are very good at delayed gratification -- as an end in itself almost. Instead of stopping us, the difficulties we encounter striving toward our goals motivate us. It works with our personality rather than against it, which is what egosyntonic means. The high value I ascribe to character development means that the unpleasantness of delayed gratification actually keeps me going.Drawing on her clinical therapeutic background, Philomena pointed out to me that not everyone is like me. Some people are egodystonic when it comes to deferred gratification. Discomfort is a sign of something to be avoided. Difficulty undermines their ability to sustain their efforts that include negative reinforcers.Now I don't want you to get the idea that it is always better to be eogsyntonic rather than egodystonic with differed gratification. Both approaches can be helpful or harmful. The egosyntonic body builders will keep pumping iron, using steroids, and stressing their cardiovascular system. They ignore the pain messages indicating tissue damage and injure even destroy themselves. And we all know about the egodystonic couch potatoes who would rather change the channel than change their lives.

Clearly having egosyntonic approach to self improvement makes it easier than being egodystonic. Yet whatever our personality, we all need to figure out ways to make positive changes in our lives. Whether we are egosyntonic or egodystonic with delayed gratification, all of us have trouble with negative reinforcement. When we reach our threshold for discomfort without enough positive reinforcement, we lose our resolve, our hope of achieving the goal and give up.

This kind of giving up is a failure of will, of nerve, an encounter with weakness and limitation. This kind of failure often is shadowed by feelings of unworthiness, guilt and shame. Usually feelings of unworthiness, guilt and shame are not of our own creation but the internalized messages of our parents and our cultural and religious upbringing. Many with Christian upbringings unknowingly carry emotional guilt interpreting their failure as resisting the will of God. Kierkegaard recognized in this feeling of weakness, an alienation from the self that resists the truth of its frailty. In this self alienation is the crippling experience of despair.

Under the failure we all experience when we are unable to do that which we know is good often is a terrifying fear of this despair. Kierkegaard asserted that this despair is at the core of the human condition. The despair of a self aware creature trying to cope with the certainty of death. Whether our self is improved or unimproved, we will all experience the same mortal limit.

Finding a way to face the despair of the human condition is one of our primary religious tasks because our finitude pulls us into despair’s bottomless pit again and again. Beyond asserting our inherent worth and dignity, Unitarian Universalism recognizes that we must each find our own provisional answer. We must find our own answer by drawing on personal experience illuminated by the world’s wisdom and religious traditions.

In the religious message and our experience we can recognize a pulse of goodness at the core of what is that inspires an enduring faith that penetrates the illusions of despair. To find that faith we must encounter despair directly and discover it's true nature.This is one of the great opportunities of Yom Kippur. As the end of the days of awe approach, the penitent Jew realizes that every harm and mistake of the previous year cannot be righted. There may be harms done to others that have slipped out of the mind. A thoughtless word spoken in anger long forgotten by all but the wounded soul who received the blow. So as the sun sets during the final service as Yom Kippur comes to an end, the plea goes up from the penitent Jew for forgiveness, fixed in the despair of not being able to fulfill God’s commandments. All must stand for the last hour as the ark remains open. There is a tone of desperation in the prayers as the congregation surrenders their pride, praying this confession:

You know the secrets of the universe,
And the hidden mysteries of all the living.
You probe all the innermost chambers,
and test thoughts and emotions.

Nothing is hidden from You
And nothing is concealed from Your eyes.

And so may it be Your will
Lord our God,
And God of our fathers,
That You forgive us for all our errors,
And you pardon us for all our iniquities,
And You atone for us
For all our willful sins.

- from the Viddui (confession)

Now I know my little nudge to floss your teeth’s a trifling in comparison to making peace with God on Yom Kippur. We Unitarian Universalists are the poorer for the absence of these cathartic rituals that can do a great deal for our spiritual well being. Yet facing ourselves, standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom, each of us can take one small step toward oral hygiene. We can face down the demons of despair as we reach for the floss and take a minute to redeem our teeth and alleviate their suffering.

Every day, every moment provides opportunities to say yes to life and dance in the face of death.

BENEDICTION

from the song "What God Said" by The Uninvited

I talked to God and here's the deal:
He said to floss between each meal
Drive with both hands on the wheel

Wear a helmet on your head
When you ride a bike instead
or you'll crash and end up dead.

If you're looking for advice
You don't need to ask me twice
Start with the basics: just be nice
And see if that makes things all right.

I talked to God and God said … nothing special
Nothing that we shouldn't already know.