The Gospel of the Aching Tooth

I'm currently experiencing a toothache.

The Gospel of the Aching Tooth

By Kateb Nuri-Alim Shunnar

Oh Lord. You don’t know how fragile the ego is until one tiny, inflamed nerve in the back of your mouth brings your entire world to its knees. I don’t care how strong you think you are, how many weights you lift, how many scriptures you can quote, how many degrees hang on your wall let that molar start crying out like a trumpet from the Book of Revelation, and suddenly, you're reduced to a trembling, squinting mess whispering prayers through clenched jaws and swollen cheeks. I don’t care if you ain’t prayed since Clinton was in office let that nerve throb like a conga drum in your skull, and you will drop to your knees like gravity just got personal.

Toothache is that holy reminder that you ain’t in control of nothing. Not your breath. Not your bank account. Not your pride. One little cavity, one abscessed molar, one inflamed gum, and you’re bargaining with God like Jacob at the riverside. “Lord, if you just take this pain away, I swear I’ll floss every day. I’ll go to church without complaining. I’ll quit cussing. I’ll call my mama back. I’ll even stop eating that hard candy I know I ain’t got no business chewing!” Dental pain will turn an atheist into a part-time deacon and a prayer warrior into a full-blown mystic.

The thing about tooth pain is it’s not just pain. It’s a spiritual event. It humbles you. It silences you. Literally. You don’t want to talk. You can’t talk. You just nod, grunt, groan, and rock back and forth like an old-time Pentecostal filled with the Holy Ghost and ibuprofen. That pain will baptize you all over again in tears, spit, and desperation. You start whispering the Lord’s name not in vain, but like it’s the only salve left in the medicine cabinet of heaven.

And let’s talk about the beat. Not music. The heartbeat. In your jaw. In your tooth. You can feel your own pulse pounding behind your eye socket like there’s a tiny angry drummer inside your gums. Boom. Boom. Boom. Every throb reminds you that you’re alive, barely, but also that you're broke and uninsured. There’s no worse paradox than being in excruciating pain and also having to Google free dental clinics while trying not to cry on the cracked screen of your Android.

Now you might ask: why is tooth pain so uniquely excruciating? I’ve sprained my ankle, broken my pinky toe, pulled a hamstring, thrown out my back, but nothing and I mean nothing compares to that shrill, sharp, unrelenting scream of a nerve ending deep in your mouth. Why, God? Why did You make the mouth so tender and the dental bills so high?

But then I understood. The mouth is sacred. It's the gate of praise. It’s the entrance to your temple, the passage of your prayers, the fountain of your thoughts and intentions. So of course, when something is spiritually out of balance, it can manifest right there in the mouth. A rotten tooth can represent a rotten word left unspoken or a truth that’s been buried too long. That gum inflammation might just be all the bitterness you’ve been chewing on instead of spitting out. That abscess? It might be spiritual infection you’ve ignored, building pressure until it explodes into a painful reckoning. Our mouths are spiritual portals. That’s why the pain cuts so deep not just in the body, but in the soul.

Now let me tell you a bit of folklore I grew up hearing from my grandmother, Celestine. Back in her day, they said there was an old woman who lived in the woods just past the river folks called her Doña Dolor, the Tooth Witch. They said if you ever had a toothache that wouldn’t go away, you had to walk barefoot to her cabin at midnight, carrying a cup of saltwater and a string of garlic. When you arrived, you’d find her stirring a pot of chicken bones and dandelion root, humming gospel songs backwards. You had to hand her your cup and say, “I come with pain, and leave it here. Doña Dolor, please interfere!” She’d take your saltwater, spit in it, and swish it around like it was mouthwash made from ancient secrets. Then she’d hand you a root, tell you to bite down and shut up for three days. If you complained or tried to talk before the third day, the pain would come back and live in your head rent-free until you died. My cousin tried it once. Bit down on that root, stayed silent for three days, and on the fourth day he proposed to his girlfriend and never got another cavity again. Now, I ain’t saying it’s true, but I ain't saying it ain't.

Tooth pain will humble even the proudest. It don’t care if you’re rich, poor, ordained, or agnostic. When the pain hits, you find out just how fragile you are. You pace the floor. You stick your face in front of a freezer. You cry silent tears at 3 a.m. while googling “Can I pull my own tooth with pliers?” You drink lukewarm peppermint tea like it's an elixir from a shaman's pouch. You try every old remedy clove oil, hydrogen peroxide, chewing on onion, praying, fasting, weeping, whispering, and eventually just curling up in fetal position whispering, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”

And don’t get me started on calling the dentist. First of all, you already know you don’t have insurance. You call anyway, hoping for a miracle. You say, “Hi, uh, I have a really bad toothache and I don’t have dental coverage, do you take... payments?” And the receptionist sounds real sweet—until she tells you that an initial consultation is $179, the X-ray is another $90, and to pull the tooth starts at $300 and up depending on if it’s “impacted.” You almost drop the phone. Your soul momentarily leaves your body. You whisper again, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”

But pain, as cruel as it feels, is not the enemy. Pain is the prophet. Pain is the preacher. Pain tells you, "Something is out of order. Something needs your attention. You’ve ignored this for too long." And in the spiritual realm, how many of us are walking around with abscessed emotions? With cavities of shame and broken roots of trauma? We mask it with sugary words, but decay is hiding underneath. Sometimes the pain of the tooth is really the pain of the truth. And if you let it, it’ll make you shut up long enough to listen. To feel. To pray, not perform.

Toothaches are a divine interruption. A forced silence. A holy hush. A chance to realize that even the small, hidden parts of ourselves need healing and care. And if God lets you go through it without Tylenol, without insurance, without a dime to your name it’s not to destroy you. It’s to humble you. It’s to slow you down. It’s to remind you that even in the agony, you are still seen, still held, still heard.

So yeah, I’m writing this swollen-faced, eyes twitching, rocking back and forth like a gospel tambourine. But I’m also grateful. Because in the ache, I found my prayer again. In the silence, I found my truth. In the throb, I remembered my humanity. And as soon as I can afford it, I’m getting this tooth pulled and writing a love offering to the dental angel who does it.

Until then, I’m chewing on the lesson. On one side of my mouth.