Divine Attunement: the face of God
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a face worth?
Try this experiment. Close your eyes and imagine the face of someone in your life who loves you. Now imagine that person looking at your face. What is her expression? What is the look on her face? Her eyes? Her lips? Hold that image in your mind for a moment. Now examine your own body–what are you feeling? Does that face change anything in you?
Now imagine the face of God looking at you. What is the expression on his face?
The answer to that question may be more important than you think.
If you’ve ever taken an undergraduate course on psychology or human development, chances are you’ve heard of the groundbreaking Still Face Experiment. In 1975, Dr. Edward Tronick observed that when a caregiver gives a “still” or expressionless face to a child, it produces an immediate and distressful response in the child. We are hardwired from birth to look for the face of another and to find them turning toward us, offering their face in return. Faces move us inwardly. They help regulate our emotional state and can either bring us peace or anxiety.
If you’ve followed my recent posts on attunement, you can imagine that the face plays a crucial role in attuning to others. To begin with, we often wear our emotions on our faces. Our faces are the only places in our body where skin meets muscle, which makes them capable of expressing dozens of expressions. Attunement, then, requires the ability to read the face of another; to observe the non-verbal cues their bodies are sending at any given moment. But it goes beyond just reading another’s face. Good attunement also requires that the face offered back is one of kindness and curiosity. If our faces are read, and we receive judgment, disgust, anger, shame, or anxiety, it causes us to hide our faces and turn away.
So does God have anything to say about attunement?
If you’re familiar with the sacred story of the Bible, you’re probably already connecting the dots. The Bible spends a lot of time talking about faces, which means that attunement is ubiquitous in the Bible. It’s on nearly every page. You might even say it’s right in front of our faces, but we rarely notice it. And the most striking truth is that the God of the Bible reveals himself to be a God who graciously attunes to his people.
In the garden of Eden, God blesses his creation and freely offers his presence. After Adam and Eve have betrayed God, however, we might expect his presence to be one of wrath and revenge. Instead, he comes to find them with a stunning curiosity. Have you ever noticed his questions: “Where are you? Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” Although omniscient, he speaks with curiosity, asking his children to tell the story from their perspective.
When their son Cain is caught red-handed in his own temptation and sin, God attunes to Cain’s face. “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?” If you’re only a few pages into the story of scripture, you already see that this God is one who meets humans with grace, kindness, and curiosity in the places of their greatest shame. Throughout the rest of scripture we find this attunement constantly extended to the inner world of his people–their thoughts, desires, feelings, and motivations. This divine attunement invites us to offer the same curiosity to ourselves and others.
God read the emotion on Cain’s face, but what expression should we expect to see on the face of God?
When God put words to his blessing in the Old Testament worship system, he connected his blessing to the expression on his face. If you’ve ever worshiped in a high-church liturgy, you’ve heard these words, given as the last words of the service:
“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
Twice in this simple blessing we are offered God’s smiling face turned toward us (and it’s more striking in the original Hebrew). To be blessed by God is to receive his face. And it is no still, expressionless face. It is not the face of an unmoved mover. It is not the face of disgust or disappointment. It is the face of a proud and beaming father smiling over his people.
I could give you countless examples of this connection in scripture. I could show you the countless pleas in the psalms for God to turn his face toward his people. I could show you how we are commanded to seek God’s smiling face and live under it in all that we do. I could show you how Christ attunes to the desires of the heart and asks questions just like his Father does. But I don’t have to because once you see it, it is right in front of your face. You can’t unsee it. The story of redemption is the story of an attuned God looking for his people, and causing them to see his face smiling back at them.
To use the Bible’s language, to be in a covenant with God is to receive his smiling face. In other words, God attunes to his people in order to establish a secure attachment with them. Even if we know we have God’s smile, how many of us live as though we have to work and perform in order to receive it? When we imagine God’s face to be still and expressionless–or worse, angry and contemptuous–it will likely bring us immediate and severe distress. We will likely turn away and hide our face from him. But if we see him, seeing us, with a smile on his face, we will not look away. And it will give us peace.
On the last page of the Bible, God wants us to remember that one day we will experience this divine attunement—not by faith but by sight. Like the benediction in the liturgy, the smiling face of God will have the last word.
“No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face.”
May the hope of that face be greater than every frown or blank stare we’ve ever received. May it give us the courage to find other faces that can attune to us with kindness and curiosity. May it invite us to offer attunement to ourselves and others. And may it gives us peace now and forever.
*Do you need help attuning to your own inner world? Do you need help learning to live under the smile of God? Don’t do it alone. Reach out to Good Shepherd Soul Care or someone who can attune to you with kindness and curiosity?
