For Wilshire Baptist Church
So here it is: I have “face pareidolia.” I’ve had it my entire life. I just didn’t have a name for it until recently. But don’t worry about me, because perhaps you have it too. It’s common and it’s harmless, but it does make one think.
According to medicalexpress.com, “face pareidolia is the phenomenon of seeing faces in everyday objects.” What’s more, it is “a very human condition that relates to how our brains are wired. And now research from UNSW Sydney has shown we process these ‘fake’ faces using the same visual mechanisms of the brain that we do for real ones.”
Google the phrase “face pareidolia” and you’ll see prime examples of faces seen in objects: tree trunks and stumps, houses and buildings, fruits and vegetables, purses and backpacks, drains, parking meters, wall hooks, bathroom fixtures, bowling balls and even shadows on the surface of Mars. Electrical outlets are a classic example; you’ve probably seen them in television commercials and ads with their surprised eyes and mouth agape.
My earliest memory of the condition is from sometime in my toddlerhood, lying in bed in the dark, looking at my fists in silhouette against light on the wall from outside. I would curl my left hand into what my brain saw as a friendly, smiling face, and I’d stretch my right hand into a face that to me looked sour and perhaps mean. And then I’d let these two characters have conversations, although I have no recollection of what they were about. Perhaps a tale of good and evil; maybe a Bible story I’d heard.
Through the rest of my life and into the present, I’ve seen faces — or my brain makes faces out of anything and everything. The backs of cars are especially rich for the imagination with back windows, taillights, bumpers, trunk latches and rear wipers becoming eyes, ears, noses and mouths depending on the configuration. I laughed out loud when I realized the dome light and sunglass compartment in my SUV form a wide-eyed gape-mouth ET-like character. The textured and mottled tile in our bathroom at home is teeming with all types of faces from goofy clowns to sinister demons. In one corner of a tile I see a moustached face that, depending on the lighting, looks like my brother or looks like Jesus.
The mental mechanisms that trigger face pareidolia may also explain why I’m pretty good at recognizing and remembering real faces outside their usual context. On the other hand, I’m not so good at names. The typical scenario is that I’ll see someone from a distance, nudge LeAnn and say, “There’s someone we know.” She’ll look at them and fill in the name.
But here’s the sticking point to this phenomenon of face pareidolia: Seeing human faces in objects does not make them human. What’s more, seeing the faces of real people doesn’t necessarily mean we treat them like humans. Nor does knowing that every human is created in God’s image mean that we automatically treat them as Godly creations. The sad truth is that we while we may believe God created all the living beasts of the Earth, sometimes we treat people like beasts.
So how is it that we can look at an inanimate object and see a face, but we can look at a real human face and see something less than what it is? It must be that as much as we credit the brain for the work of analyzing physical details and translating them into information, seeing humanity in each other must be the work of the heart. It is the heart that holds the divine spark that enables us to recognize that we are human and truly created of God.
If we’re not seeing humanity in the face of someone else, then maybe we are sick — heart sick, to be exact. If we can’t see the spark of God in another human’s face, then perhaps our own spark has grown weak. Perhaps it’s covered up by any of a variety of emotional or spiritual gunk: fatigue, anger, distrust, disappointment, jealousy, greed, hunger, hopelessness, sorrow, despair, loneliness.
And now I’ve come to the part where I might offer a solution, but I don’t have one. Except to say that there are times in our lives when we can’t help ourselves and we need some outside help. If that’s you, please don’t hesitate to reach out to someone you trust – someone who will see you with their heart and not just their brain. Someone who will engage with you as a real human being created of God and not as a face on a wall.