Face

Make your face to shine upon your servant . . . 

 - From Psalm 31

When God makes His face to shine upon us . . . is it covered? Or did he create the human face as an important visual blessing to the world? If God's face shines upon us, does He also smile, to see our smiles in response? When He models such acts of grace and love for us, does He then expect us to do the same, to each other? Is the mouth an important part of positive communication, and of smiling, or is it really true that you can smile "with your eyes," and that would be good enough?

Science: The human face emits light. The part of the human face that emits the most light, is the bottom half: the mouth. The nose. The chin. 

Does God expect our lights to shine for one another . . . or does He prefer we cover our light? If a light is covered up by a bushel and thus loses it's value . . . does the same thing happen if the light-emitting bottom half of a human face is covered, as if by a bushel?

The rest of Psalm 31, before asking for God's light to shine upon us, goes into detail about the way the righteous are treated by the wicked. They're mocked. They're slandered. 

When walking down the street, the wicked turn away from the righteous - they avoid the righteous.

It's like seeing someone walking your way . . . and there's something visual about them that makes you cross the street so that you will not have to interact with them. I saw that happening a lot, during the summer of 2020. And the expression of the avoiders, showing forth from their eyes, the uncovered part of their face, had all the anger and judgmentalism that I would imagine the wicked have towards the righteous, all the time!

For I have heard the whispering of the crowd, says the Psalmist. 

I have heard it, too. Or read it, on Social Media.