Devotional Men’s Prayer Group
Christ United Methodist Church
Dr. P.D. Miller Jr.
December 31st, 2015
The Relationship between Vulnerability and Epiphany
Whereas an epiphany is an awakening, vulnerability is your willingness to reveal your innermost thoughts and feelings. It requires emotional strength, self-confidence, and your willingness to risk moral attacks and criticism. * With regards to criticism Aristotle said, “If you want to avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, and you will become nothing.” Vulnerability is often the antithesis of political correctness. If vulnerability shows strength, political correctness can often be an excuse for weakness.
Malcolm Gladwell in his book “The Outliers” makes a strong argument for how disadvantaged children born in August through October are compared with children born November to January if they start school when they are six. I was one of those children. I was smaller, less mature, and less experienced than the seven year olds in my class. This had a profound impact on the inferiority complex that I suffered until I began seeing patients in dental school. I had some success in little league baseball (see “Blessed Generation”) and playing high school football. Football is a contact sport and I did not like contact. Because my father was a dentist, my nickname was “Doc”. I played the weak side end on a single wing offense. The weak side end was equivalent to today’s flanker. My blocking assignments were limited hence not as much contact, which really appealed to me. After dropping a series of passes our assistant coach, Monroe Parker, approached me and said “Doc, you’re grabbing at the ball and here’s what I want you to do. I want you to imagine that the football is your girlfriend’s breast and I want you to focus on gently reaching out and catching it with your hands before you cradle it to your chest.” The interesting thing is that I did not have a girlfriend, nor had I ever touched a breast. After that I never dropped another pass. I then made All District behind Carol Dale, who became an all American and All Pro for the Green Bay Packers under Vince Lombardi!
The inferiority complex carried on over to college. Davidson College was a strong academic institution where on my hall was five or six valedictorians. To seek an identity, since I was not competitive academically, I became a party boy. A party boy with all the risks and dangers associated with that type of individual. Naturally, I became the social chairman of my fraternity. In my junior year there was a spoof on “Who’s Who”, called “Who’s nothing”. Five seniors and five juniors were nominated. When the voting came in, I came in second. So my only honor in college was first alternate “Who’s nothing”!
My academic mediocrity continued on until I began seeing patients my third year in dental school. Until that time, my mediocracy only impacted me. Now for the first time, my mediocrity affected someone else – my patient. That became the first epiphany in my life and I became an excellent clinical dentist, and to a great extent, my inferiority complex went away. Through dental school and to the air force and two years of private practice, I prided myself on being an excellent clinical dentist. In short, my inferiority complex blossomed into a superiority complex.
I entered my residency at the University of Alabama Birmingham four years older and more experienced than my fellow residents. I felt superior and sadly I acted more superior. After finishing my residency, I decided to challenge the Board of the American Academy of Periodontology. Becoming board certified was the pinnacle of professional recognition. In 1972, only military periodontists and academicians sought board certification for obvious reasons. They needed to be board certified if they were to be promoted. Few people in general practice sought board certification. Not only did I seek board certification, I boasted to my colleagues that I planned to become board certified never doubting that it would occur. My superiority complex had morphed into cockiness. I prepared my cases which in retrospect were too advanced and although they were well treated, they were controversial. My cases were rejected, that is the politically correct way of saying that I failed the board. I was crushed, angry, frustrated, but mostly embarrassed because of the fact that I had bragged so much about getting my board certification.
That’s when epiphany # 2 occurred. What could I do to vindicate and restore my reputation as a good periodontist? I chose to attempt something that had never been done in periodontics and in theory thought to be impossible – that is to cover a denuded root (or treat gingival recession). A denuded root has no blood supply, but by using a larger gingival graft I was able to make this work. The publication of that article went viral and is now considered a classic article in periodontics. This has allowed me over the last 30 years to travel the world lecturing and be honored by every award given by the American Academy of Periodontology yet I am not board certified. This brings me to another quote, “We don’t grow from success, but by our reaction to failure.” Proverbs 3:5 is my favorite bible verse, “Trust in The Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your path.” The publication of that article defined me as a visionary. Visionary people are not necessarily smart and many smart people are not visionary. A visionary argues for change and many smart people are resistant to change.
In summary, I have given you my life’s history where I evolved from feelings of inferiority to feelings of superiority which ultimately became prideful and boastful. God chose to humble me and make me the man that I am. Hence the message of this devotional, “To God goes the glory.”