Faces

New faces are emptier than the old faces of long-known friends or comfortable acquaintances. The mouth of a friend is not merely slightly crooked teeth and pink lips—it the lopsided grimace of the joke that neither of us could laugh at until later. Her nose is not just pointed and freckled—it is the Kleenexes she needed when she mourning another person’s wasted chance. Her forehead doesn’t just wrinkle in thought—it becomes the struggle to do her best in the class she hates. Her eyes are more than blue, grey, or kind—they are pools filled with hours of listening.

The eyes of a stranger sometimes let me in, giving a glimpse of someone who is afraid, who has spunk, who knows more than he wants to, or who loves with a cause. The eyes give me a hint—either “You want to know this person” or “Stay away.” Still, it is only a hint. The new face is nothing other than a face, a hopefully pleasing combination of physical features that might or might not reflect the person’s inner nature in the way I guess. The new face fills in with a bit of color when I see the features stoop over and help someone who’s dropped an armful of books and papers across a busy hallway. When the unknown person speaks to a little boy like he is a real human being, the face piques my interest. With each new piece of the puzzle, I become more and more anxious to know the person whose face has yet to become real to me. Personality pushes through, drawing me toward certain people and away from others.

I wouldn’t have expected one of those people who I am drawn towards to be God because I do not expect God to be a person. Though I use the pronouns “him” or “he,” I still think he must be something impersonal and huge—a great, unknowable being. Everything that I’ve experienced about him says this is not true. He has personality more vivid, complex, and consistent than any human ever could. The glimpses that I get of him are ones that, if I saw them in a human, would make me want to talk to the person and spend time with them in the hope that I could be like that. He created people for their benefit. He lets people make choices against him while continuing to love them. He loves through betrayal and scorn, not because he is weak on his own and feeds off the twisted attention of the people he loves, but because his love is about giving and not receiving. He never ceases to comfort the broken-down cast-offs of society or to build up people who can save the lives of the needy. He turns lives from destruction to a thriving existence. He is willing to die so that more may live. He does not simply mop up injustice and sin—he redeems them.

None of the new faces I see around campus this year is God-in-flesh; many of them are people that I want to know more about. These new faces must not distract me from an old one that I want to grow a deeper love for, since even the familiar, comfortable face of a friend can turn into a blank slate if the friendship is left on an unseen bookshelf to be the home of dust-bunnies. In the face of a friend, where the mouth, nose, forehead, and eyes are so intricately known, one might suddenly see the dimple that is only on one side as more than a cute indentation—it might be a warning of hidden frustration. Seeking to know the old face is the easiest way to find out.