Prosopagnosia - Never Heard Of It

I have never been good at putting names with faces.  Almost every Sunday morning at the New Community 930 gathering I have to take a very quick glimpse at the person's name tag that I am approaching in order to greet or converse.  After a fashion, I don't have a problem in recognizing faces, it seems.  Yet, I'm constantly saying I know that face from somewhere. Or I often tell Bettyann that I've seen that person somewhere before but don't know where.  She has a regular come back after all these years: "I sure!"  Sometimes I do and she's impressed! But unlike me who might have trouble recollecting the name of the man who just said hello, I read of a scientist, mind you, who has trouble in recognizing the face of the man who just said hello.  Even if it is his own father's.  His condition is called prosopagnosia or "face blindness," and until recently the disorder was thought to be exceedingly rare.  But new research led by a team that included Grüter himself shows the disorder is surprisingly common.  Who would have guessed?

It seems that those affected with prosopagnosia are not forgetful or inattentive.  They're not even the social snobs they are often accused of being.  More surprising, to me, is that when looking in a mirror they don't often distinguish their own face from any other face.  The part of the brain that signals face recognition simply does not respond.  As a result, they may greet acquaintances as strangers, struggle to keep up with plots in movies, and have difficulty finding their own children at school pick-up time.  In a book I ran across by goggling -prosopagnosia- is entitled: "Just Another Face in the Crowd Even if It's Your Own." The author, Nicholas Bakalar, writes: "I see faces that are human," notes one woman of her condition, "but they all look more or less the same.  It's like looking at a bunch of golden retrievers: some may seem a little older or smaller or bigger, but essentially they all look alike."

The more I think about what it would mean to live unable to recognize faces, the more I am amazed at God's gift to me in being able to recognize any detail, at all. I'm thinking about how a person's face changes with expression or circumstance, angle or shift of light; how they are transformed by emotions and altered by different situations.  Given the intricacy of the task, it is phenomenal that I should be able to recognize so many faces so effortlessly in the first place. 

I remember that I learned, years ago, when pediatrics was of main interest too me that the face is one of the very first things we learn to respond to as infants.  Developmental psychologists speak readily of the importance of the human face in the life of a newborn, particularly the faces of mother and father, which the child quickly comes to recognize.  There was a Princeton professor in the 1990's who spoke of the tendency of an infant to smile when one holds the mere configuration of a face on a stick beside the crib.  He wrote in his book The Logic of the Spirit: "The face phenomenon is not strictly something that comes only from the environment; it is also a construct created by the child and developed out of the child's inherent resources and deep-seated longing.  Children seem uniquely endowed with a potential capacity to sum up all the complexity of the nurturing presence in the figure of the face."  I learned that for a child, the face plays a central role in their developing sense of the order of the universe.  Thus, when the face of the loving nurturer goes away in any capacity (which is inevitable), the child's world is upset on some real level.  For what has gone away is not merely a static face but a much greater presence.  In instruction given new parents and in reminding all our nursery workers, I would say, "remember: when that infant does not see you, you no longer exist."  I've often thought that when someone no longer exist it might well be the implementation of a form of the grief process. I still can't prove it but remains an interesting theory.     

In this, children inherently illustrate a correlation drawn in biblical language.  In both Greek and in Hebrew, the word for "face" is also the word for "presence."  Though while on this earth, I will never literally behold the face of God, but isn't it the Father's greater countenance that I seek, God's presence that comforts above all.  The psalmist's plea is that the confirming presence of God's love would remain with him always: "Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper.  Do not reject me or forsake me, O God my Savior.  Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me" (Psalm 27:9-10).  I've found that scripture seems to pronounce what is echoed in the skills and longings of a developing child.  Namely, my years urge me to pursue "a relationship with the One who is the cosmic ordering, self-confirming presence," notes Loder. That is to say, the enduring pursuit of the faithful is a pursuit of the Face that will not go away.

Father, God, I cannot imagine the hardships that those who have no face recognition. But I acknowledge there are times when Your face has certainly been obscure to me, and it's always been a painful discomfort.  I know the signs of Your assuring presence are around me, but I am at times hard-pressed to recognize it. It's in such most recent times when I am reminded by my own longing that You are near. Even at my age, recognition is a task that seldom comes effortlessly, the longing to know Your face is a sign placed deeply within me, an assuring mark of Your very presence.  Thank You that wherever I'm in my stage of recognition, that promise is extended:  For now I see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; but then I shall see face to face.  Amen