Putting a Face to the Name

Moving from words to persons…

Putting a Face to the Name

I’m horrible with names. When I first started teaching it would take me half the year to begin to remember my students’ names. I was much better with faces. I could recognize people I’d seen only once or twice months, even years, later. I’ve gotten better. Little tricks, like repeating someone’s name as much as possible when I first meet them, have helped. But there is something deeper.

A friend was reading from their recently penned book – a new project that I can’t say more about other than I am eagerly awaiting its completion. They were recounting an event for which they had felt ill prepared to walk through. I could relate. They had been thrust into a position of responsibility on account of their regular rhythms of life. From this new position they were now in communication with new people whom they had never met before. My friend went from visiting and caring for one person, to being connected with their entire family and caring, in a way, for them. These new connections happened by phone first. He had their names, but not their faces. The opportunity to put faces to names, and lives to faces, as he described it, would come later.

This description – to put faces to names and lives to faces – struck me. What a concise description of what happens when we get to know someone. Names have significant power and yet can’t begin to encapsulate the lives they refer to. Faces get us a little closer to this life, as they express a bit of our inner world. But then there is the life – both the history of what we have journeyed through and also the central energy that enlivens our being and propels us through our days. We live a life, and we have life. These are much experiential that descriptive. To experience life with someone is very different than just knowing their name or seeing their face.

Putting a Face to the Name

Babies need to see their parents’ faces. There is a profound bond that comes of the given and received attention in this exchange. The parent practices giving themselves to their child. The child learns the security of the parents’ loving gaze.

But what if the parent can not be physically present. In the best of cases the child will hear a story. They will learn their parent’s name and some things about them. Maybe they will see a picture, or a recorded video. If the parent is still alive, maybe a video call is possible. By what if the name and the story is all they had?

Think for a moment of the ideas that come to mind when you hear a particular name – Lisa, Jill, Jack, or John for example. How about Shakira, Layla, Aziz, or Babatude? As with other descriptive labels names bring to mind ideas. They are meant to. The ideas are made in part of the experiences we have had with the name. Maybe we knew someone who loved us or hurt us with a particular name. The name will bring back those feelings. Maybe the name feels foreign. Our feelings toward foreign things will be aroused. Have you ever encountered face that didn’t quite match your idea of the name you had associated with it?

This is a profound realty that comes into significant play if we consider a relationship with God. Whether you grew up in a particular faith, have engaged with people who believe in God, or just happened across a conversation in which the name of God was mentioned, it is safe to say that most folks may hear the name of God before seeing his face (or even considering that possibility.

On of the first spiritual formation exercises I was ever guided through had to do with the face of God. It was fairly simply and straightforward, going something like this:

• Close your eyes.

• Imagine for a moment that you are approaching God, as if to begin a conversation.

• You arrive and look up, as a child looking up at their father.

• What is the expression on God’s face?

I did this in a group, and the responses were as varied as you might expect. Some folks saw a clear face with an expression on it. Some just had a sense of how the expression made them feel. Regardless, most had a profound reaction – an honest, visceral, response unveiling something about their relationship with God. They considered his face.

The Bible considers the power of this shift from name to face, as well. Two examples that immediately come to mind are an instruction of blessing in the book of Numbers, and a proposition of life in book of Matthew.

The book of Numbers (LINK) recounts a conversation Moses has with God, as he is being instructed as to how the priests of Israel are to bless the people. Giving a blessing is a huge responsibility. Consider when a blessing is withheld, and you may more clearly see the power of generously given blessing. This is the blessing Moses was told to teach the priests:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.

Can you imagine living a life in which someone’s face shines upon you? And that it is good? This, rather than trying to escape the gaze of someone, or feeling the condemnation of someone’s glaring eyes.

This example in the book of Matthew is related. Well into the first few lines we find this statement:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

This is striking to when set against the idea that so much of faith (in anything) is steeped in believing without having first seen. Here we find that a function of a singular heart (the wanting of one thing, above other things), is a gaining of sight of the unseen. Further, it is assumed that this is a good thing. In the context of these verses it is implied that God is the one that you would want to see. That the experience of seeing him would be glorious, if nothing else.

My Own Experience

I have caught myself fervently praying to see God’s face twice in my life. Both times I felt alone, in unknown territory, and needing some reassurance that God was will with me. Both times I was in my car – what I might consider my “monk’s closet.” Both times my prayers were answered. Both times I was overwhelmed by the immediacy of his care and presence. Both times I burst into tears.

The first time, I was in my late twenties. I was mourning the loss of a relationship and the pain I new I had caused for my part in it all. I was begging to know that God would be willing to forgive me as I drove out of the Lincoln Tunnel and up and around the helix. I remember saying out loud, almost yelling, “I want to see you. I want to know.” In what felt like an instant, I felt a wind pass through my entire body, my sight went dark, and at once my disposition changed. I began to cry, apologize for doubting, and thanking him for the gift I had just received. All the things, all at once.

The second time was similar. I was two days into a cross-country drive. Solo. I was listening to Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines, calling friends, and talking to God. I was in the middle of my journey out of severe burnout. In the middle meant, realizing a reorganization of my life was being required, not yet having my footing, and feeling ill equipped for whatever lay ahead. “Are you here with me in this? I’d like to see your face. ” I wasn’t so much concerned, as I was curious. I didn’t think I’d make it through this part of the journey well without him. To see God’s face would be a marker. Encouragement for what lay ahead. Just then I crested over a ridge. Somewhere between Lincoln, Nebraska and Colorado, the road dropped away from my view and all I saw was sky. Straight ahead, in the clouds, was a face – as big as my field of view. The tears came quickly, but with a qualitative difference than the first time. I was overwhelmed with the love and care – the consideration for my curiosity – and filled with joy. I didn’t feel bad for asking. Rather, I felt encouraged to continue to ask for what I thought I would need in the future.

I share these experiences simply to say, that sometimes part of the journey (if not a key part of it) is an encounter. If just to put a face to the name. With all the media that exists today, we may think we know (have interacted with) a person, place, or thing. We think we know the face and the name. When in reality, all we have done is observed, heard of, or seen. Actual interaction comes from things that can only happen when both parties are engaged. Conversation or collaboration include action and response. We discover how the face responds to us – you and me, individually. It is in these interactions that we might be changed, and feel drawn, if not specifically invited, into the life behind the face.