My Toothache

A century ago, L.P. Jacks wrote:  “I read the other day a book intended to justify the ways of God to man, which argued that if men are to have teeth at all they must have teeth that ache.  There must therefore be such as thing as toothache.  Quite so.  But what if the number of aching teeth in the world at this moment is a hundred times as great as it need be?  And why should this aching be as violent as it is?…And why should my teeth ache rather than yours?”

Jacks was dealing with the problem of God and the fact that evil and suffering exist in our world—a persistent problem even in our so-called modern world of the 21st century. I have found no satisfactory answer to that problem. 

I just know that if I have a heart and you have a heart that our hearts will inevitably and from time-to-time be broken.  I know that as my heart ages it is likely to fail. (Figuratively speaking, I also think that without such a heart, I would not be able to love).  I know that I am encased in a body—and a frail one at that.  My body (and yours) is susceptible to all kinds of maladies from the common cold, arthritis, cancer, and even the Coronavirus.  But without that body what would I be?  Having a head means occasionally having a headache.  But without that head I wouldn’t have any place for a brain and without a brain I wouldn’t be able to process my thoughts and my body wouldn’t function as it does now.  I know that having ears I may occasionally have an earache.  But without my ears (big as they are) I wouldn’t be able to hear.  

But Jacks’ final sentence gets to me, “And why should my teeth ache rather than yours?” Why should I be disturbed about this or that when others are not?  Why, when you have eyes and I have eyes do we see differently?  Since we all have ears,  why is it that I hear what others seem not to hear?  It’s baffling and it irks my soul.  On the other hand, what a boring, dull world it would be if we were all alike—all seeing, thinking, and feeling the same.   But still the question comes:  “And why should my teeth ache rather than yours?”

Antelope Canyon, Page, AZ