“My heart said, ‘Seek Your Face’; Your face Lord do I seek.”  Psalm 27:8

“Your face is the icon of your life.”  John O’Donohue[1]

What do you hear when you look at another’s face?

Yes, I said that correctly.  I mean exactly what I said.  When we look at another person we don’t merely see—we hear.  We hear with our hearts and spirit which reveal something much deeper and more meaningful than merely what we see on a surface level.  To listen to the face of another is to gaze deeply into their divine nature.  Here’s an example.

Two years ago, I co-facilitated a retreat at the Iona Abbey in Scotland.  As one of the exercises the participants were asked to pair up with another person whom they didn’t know. They were to sit silently for five minutes looking into the eyes of the other. Not speaking, just looking.  Deeply.  Gazing into the eyes, which are a window to the soul.  At the end of that time, we gathered as a group to share our experience.  One woman, we’ll call her Mary, began to share her experience.  “As I was looking at Sue at first it was very uncomfortable.  But after a time, her face began to change, and I saw the face of God—as a woman.  I began to cry, for all of the hurt that I had experienced being raised in a patriarchal church, with the image of God as an abusive father figure, melted away.  My heart was filled with pure love.” 

Looking deeply into the face of Sue not only opened a new way of seeing God for Mary, but it also revealed something much deeper;  It revealed the divine nature which she saw in Sue.  Sue, in her 70’s, had cultivated something within herself during her life, forged in the fires of trials and tragedies, which purged and purified her soul and created something loving, caring, and compassionate—something truly divine—which was “visible” to Mary. 

In the following excerpt O’Donohue gives a thorough description.  “In the human face, a life looks out at the world and also looks in on itself.  It is frightening to behold a face in which bitterness and resentment have lodged.  When a person’s life has been bleak, much of its negativity can remain unhealed.  Since the negativity is left untransfigured, the bleakness lodges in the face.  The face, instead of being a warm presence, has hardened to become a mask. . . Yet one also encounters the opposite, namely, the beautiful presence of an old face deeply lined and inscribed by time and experience that has retained a lovely innocence.  Even though life may have moved wearily and painfully through such a person they have still managed not to let it corrode their soul.  In such a face a lovely luminosity shines out into the world. It casts a tender light that radiates a sense of holiness and wholesomeness.  The face always reveals who you are, and what life has done to you.”[2]

Throughout history artists have depicted the face of Jesus.  This, despite that fact that no one knows for certain what Jesus looked like.  While it is fascinating to consider what might be close approximations and facsimiles for the face of Jesus, the point is not what people see on the surface contours of his face, but rather what the face of Jesus revealed on a deeper level; the “lovely luminosity” as O’Donohue says.  His face is the perfect and unadulterated reflection of the true nature of the Divine which made its dwelling within him.  His face revealed the fullness of compassion, love, mercy, kindness, graciousness, acceptance, forgiveness, etc.  That is what we “see” in the face of Jesus.  And, by the grace of God given to us through the Holy Spirit, what we hope others will see in us. 

I want to share with you one more story, this one also from O’Donohue, which illustrates the importance of this principal. “In South America, a journalist friend of mine met an old Indian chief whom he would have loved to interview.  The chief agreed, on the condition that they could have some time together beforehand.  The journalist presumed that they would meet and just have a normal conversation.  Instead, the chief took him aside and looked directly into this eyes in silence for along time.  Initially, this terrified my friend; he felt his life was totally exposed to the gaze and silence of this stranger.  After a while, the journalist began to deepen his own gaze.  Each continued this silent gazing for more than two hours.  After this time, it seemed as if they had known each other all of their lives.  There was no longer any need for the interview.  In a certain sense, to gaze into the face of another is to gaze into the depth and entirety of his life.”[3]

Looking into the face of another is more than just seeing their life.  It is seeking to gaze into the eyes, the heart, and the very life of God.  To seek God’s face is to desire to look deeply into the hidden mysteries of God, sometimes through another, and oftentimes through the silence and solitude that is fostered in quiet and contemplative prayer practices. 

How do you see, and seek, the face of God?

How is looking deeply at God’s face reflected in your own?

What does your face reveal to the outside world?

I would invite you this week to engage in a “deep listening” exercise.  Find another person with whom you can sit face-to-face for at least five minutes.  Gaze deeply.  Pay close attention to what they look like inside, beyond the surface level of their face.  Allow their eyes, and yours, to serve as windows into your souls.  And then share with the other person what you saw.

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[1] “Anam Cara”, p. 43

[2] IBID p. 44

[3] IBID, p.39