Just a Thought - Faces

Did you know that there are currently approximately 7.4 billion different living human faces in the world? Ignoring the possibility of chance matches within that figure, until around six to seven years ago, that would have been enough to go round, but now, with the world population at over 8 billion, there is a small chance, approximately 74 out of 1000 in fact, of some other living person having exactly the same face as you. He or she would then be known as your doppelganger, a strange word derived from the German term for 'ghost'.

Having a unique face is an extremely important feature of being a human being. It means that we can easily recognize and interact with people; family, friends, colleagues and so on.

But it's not just our face which allows us to recognize and interact with others. Our body shape and size are also extremely influential, as well as our hair and even what we wear. Voice, touch and even smell can play an important part too, especially when we are not able to see or hear a person.

"Hold on". you may well be thinking,
"What on earth has all this got to do with religion?"

Well, lots in fact! On the face of it (oh dear, a poor pun) we appear to get on perfectly well with these God given attributes (although sadly, there are many who suffer disability) but they are nothing compared to what we are really using to interact. Not only to interact with others, but with ourselves, and yes, with God.

You may argue that our brain is our communication control centre and you would be right. You may argue that it is also our thought processor, and again you would be right. And you may also argue that our eyes, ears, nose, and of course our sensory nerves, are our receptor interfaces. And so on. But all this is missing something extremely important. That they are all merely tools to aid our being.

Now here you may argue, and correctly in my opinion, that our being is actually our soul. St Paul was very clear on this. In his first letter to the Thessalonians (ch5,v23) he wrote: "The soul signifies the spiritual principle of man. The human body is human precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul”.

So next time you look at someone's face, for whatever reason, just consider that it is your very being, your soul, that is reaching out to that other person. And it is his or her soul that may want to respond to you! If this were not the case, and we were just a collection of animated components, it would be very difficult to see the point of life, don't you think?

Worth a thought!

Thank you for reading this.

Ken

PLEASE NOTE. This and all other entries in 'News and Notices' are usually listed in order of date published or amended.