February 20, 2009

• Faces
  

  People are strange aren't we? Think for a moment about how many different people you've known over your lifetime. Depending on how many breaths you've breathed the number could be small or wildly huge. This year I'll be sixty-two and because I've passed forty of those years working with groups of people my number may be relatively large. Being a rather reclusive person the number is nowhere near what it might have been. From that imaginary number there will be a much smaller number representing the people we've called friends. Because we are what we are there will be an even smaller number that proved to be true friends. What is a true friend? Though interestings we don't have space for that here so let's leave that for another time. Instead let's talk about the difference between the number we called friends and the number who proved to be friends. Depending on how you've used the word the difference could be staggering. If we gain wisdom with our experience we learn that not everyone shows us their face. Not all of them are being deliberately two-faced but most are because our society trains us to have at least two faces and usually more. The face we may wear at home with loved ones may be different from the face we wear at work. The face we look at in the mirror will be different from the others as well. With all of these faces it's hard for us to really know what we look like.

   

  There are those of us who can't see because the mirror into which we look is terribly warped with pride and vanity. Other mirrors have collected a film of grime giving them varying degrees of opaqueness. Some folks get a glimpse of their face and quickly cover the mirror with some picture or other so they never have to see their blemishes again. We are complex in our simplicity. We collect faces as we travel through life. Some from movie stars or characters we read about in books. Others from people we've known and admired or known and hated until we took on their features. We start out with a soft, pliable face when we're born. It's elastic and nearly featureless until we put some miles on ourselves. Toward the end of life our face becomes well worn with care, worry, happiness or some combination. Many of the people we meet leave an imprint on our face. Some because we wish it and others because we resist it. When we're young we worship our youth and its supposed beauty. As we age we may learn true beauty lies in the lines and features of a character forged in the fires of life's trials.

  Today I call no one a friend and I call everyone a friend. This seeming contradiction is made possible by removing my expectations from people. Each person is my friend but I may never be their friend. Since I've learned to choose my friends rather than allow them to choose me I get to say who is a friend and I say everyone I meet is my friend. Because not everyone has that perspective not everyone can call me a friend. Not because I am not their friend but because they have no room in their heart for such a friend. That's another thing that can happen as we travel through life. We can learn to expand our hearts making more room for people. We remove the fences of expectation and find wide open spaces clear and fresh to the horizon. Today I trust people not because they are trustworth but because I am more trustworthy. Not so much because they are real yet but because I am becoming more real. It takes some expierence to learn to look through the face to the heart that made it. I still get it wrong but at least I'm beginning to learn to err on the side of love.

  • 7:21 pm
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