Wednesday, February 11, 2026
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Teeth
The mouth of the just man tells of wisdom
and his tongue utters what is right.
The law of his God is in his heart,
and his steps do not falter …
The mouth of the just murmurs wisdom.
On this Wednesday I’m remembering Wednesday last week, when Jasper lost his first tooth. In an unsupervised, unexpected and unparalleled miracle, his mom caught the thing on film. And we have been watching it daily, more often even, just to be sure that our own lives catch up with his, catch on to the coattails of his irrepressible joy, sink our teeth along with him into the life, the one wild and precious life, that we’ve each been given.
I am sure that even as Mr. Jasper plots his course across the beginnings of his life, he would be embarrassed to watch others watching him. Most of us would be too. But still, I’m fabulously grateful for the chance to see explosive 100% joy showing up in this particular child of God.
I don’t want to put too many words on it, just breathe deep, smile a broad smile, be still and be happy.
Commit to the LORD your way;
trust in him, and he will act.
He will make justice dawn for you like the light;
bright as the noonday shall be your vindication.
Teeth matter. Uncle Bub lost his after WWII. A needle somehow encased in his gums could not be removed, and that needle prevented him from wearing dentures. But as my aunt said, he still managed to enjoy fried chicken. In my life (and my aunt’s too), Uncle Bub was a smiling, toothless wonder, quiet, humble, irrepressibly playful. Around him I felt happy. He loved hunting and fishing, and he and his wife Aunt Emma kept their house warm in the winter. And he loved us. His hugs never quite ended.
When my brother and I had breakfast together last month, he too arrived sans teeth. But in the same way I felt happy and safe around Uncle Bub, I feel happy and safe around my brother John. What is that? I think it’s something about how solid he is, standing on a foundation of faith and generosity without saying anything much about it. I see that he trusts God more than he trusts himself … way more! And he laughs (often at himself) rather than … rather than … all those other unhappy alternatives.
We’re a few years (seven) apart, and so I was mostly the one who tickled him rather than the other way round. His laugh will NOT be stopped. Remember that cool guy in Mary Poppins who kept floating up to the ceiling, the one Dick van Dyke loved so much and Julie Andrews’ frown failed to chasten? He loved to laugh, loud and long and clear, and those kids loved every minute of it. (And just take a look at those Van Dyke teeth!)
Oh, yeah, I love every minute too. Joy joy joy joy in my heart, that unstoppable unpopped bubble floating up and up and away. This is what the Greeks meant, perhaps, with their word “ENTHUSIASM.” The middle part, THEUS, means God.
What was it Mary Oliver said? Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? On this 100th birthday of my Uncle Merlie, and five days before the 95th birthday of my Aunt Vera, both of whom remember Uncle Bub as fondly as I do, I think laughing is entirely in order. Just watch Jasper. Just watch Ed Wynn. Just watch Jesus.
Do you not realize that everything
that goes into a person from outside cannot defile,
since it enters not the heart but the stomach
and passes out into the latrine?
It’s what comes out of the man, that is what defiles him.
From within the man, from his heart.
And of course, the converse is also true … “It’s what comes out of a man, that is what enriches/purifies/edifies him.”
I heard that Uncle Merlie wrote a poem on his 90th birthday. And that he wrote another one for his 100th  (which was yesterday). His kiddos (now nearly in their seventies like me) are throwing a big party for him thi weekend, and a bunch of us are flying to North Carolina to be there together. Maybe he’ll read those poems to us …
Here’s the rest of what Mary Oliver wrote, in her own poem, “The Summer Day.”
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean —
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down —
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
(1 Kings 10, Psalm 37, John 17, Mark 7)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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