grind 'em! (or Why I Know I'm a Psychosomatic Unity)

My teeth hurt.

They have been hurting. I figured out why .

I don’t pray enough. I think too much and, apparently, I grind my teeth when that happens.

Once a week I drive to Wake Forest for a night class. I like to drive, but the commute in my truck gives me too much uninterrupted time to think. And really, I have had a lot on my mind. If I’m honest, it’s not just the two hours on Tuesday that I am in my truck that this happens.
The trouble is that the thinking I am doing isn’t of the helpful sort. One of my friends tells me that I get lost in my head. That is kind of what it feels like: lostness. I know from experience that little good comes from it. It is beyond analyzing or thinking things through. It’s more sinister than that.

It’s rooted in a distrust. There are some things that I just don’t want to leave up to God alone. Too often I say that I will trust God to work, but I determine that it is through me that He is going to do it. Thus, I pretend to trust God but I try to take matters into my own hands. I want things to go my way. If they don’t, I want to fix it. If I can’t fix it, I want to figure out where I went wrong. I want to know what I could have done different. I want to know how I can prevent such a thing from ever happening again. And I get lost in my head...

One of my friends, Scott, has recently demonstrated yet again why he is such a dependable friend. It was a rare moment where I verbalized everything that was going through my mind. When I was finally quiet, as we stood in the cool night under the stars, he told me to pray. He told me of his efforts to replace the time that he spent daydreaming with prayer and he challenged me to do the same.

He’s right. I need to pray. My teeth hurt.




*concerning a “psychosomatic unity” – if you take a systematic theology class you will come to a point where you will talk about “man” (anthropology). it is probable that during that point of the class the professor will encourage you to determine if you are a trichotomist (“man” is body, soul, and spirit) or a dichotomist (“man” is body and soul). there is also a chance that this will be built up as a really big decision. well, I like the approach of Anthony Hoekema in Created in God’s Image. he just argued that we should say that man is a “psychosomatic unity.” “psychosomatic” comes from the two greek words for spirit and body. he made the point that we are both physical and spiritual and the two are connected. this is why when I am in mental and spiritual angst I grind my teeth.