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
