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Available for over a year

Lent means lengthening. As the days grow lighter, we’re aware restrictions will start to lift. Have we ever anticipated the end with more joy? But even as we delight at the future reinstatement of cuddles and contact, the Chief Scientific Advisor Patrick Vallance warns that face-coverings, so crucial for our wellbeing, may still be needed for another year. I suffer from prosopagnosia, face blindness, and often can’t decipher even the full features of someone I know well. Voices, which usually help me, are also muffled through masks. I know they keep me safe, but I’ve really struggled with such a long stretch of concealment. Face. Visage. Physiognomy. Have you ever thought how important it is to see someone’s face? For yours to be seen? How many different things your countenance can convey? Personal history and character. My mother was that rarity, the converse to Dorian Gray: so lovely-natured that she grew more beautiful with each vivacious line and every wrinkle of old age. Unique identity and vulnerability. Researching online scamming, I learnt that a sure sign of a conman is if he won’t show you his face. Revelation and influence. A year or two ago a stranger stopped me in the street: why do you always look so sad? I explained that our daughter’s very ill. But ever since, I’ve smiled in case I bump into him again… and it makes me so much happier! Presence and power. The Lord spoke to Moses, panim al panim, face to face. Then promised that His presence – literally, face – would be with Moses, leading his people. The word derives from turning towards; also, in full view. His brother Aaron’s blessing was that the Lord would cause His face to shine on them. But also dazzling destruction. Almost immediately God warns Moses, You cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live. Then He covers Moses’ face to protect him from His glory. Thereafter Moses has to veil his own face, lest the people of Israel are blinded by the reflected radiance of God. And splendour and sway. This same idea is echoed in the New Testament, when women are exhorted to wear ἐξουσία, power or authority, on our heads when we pray, to hide our glory… the origin of the now quaint etiquette of wearing hats in church. Now we see through a glass, darkly. C S Lewis references this in his retelling of an ancient myth. Psyche must never look on the face of her lover, the god Cupid: the sight will destroy her. Her older sister, telling the story, only becomes truly herself on her deathbed: at last recognising both herself, and divine goodness. Foretelling and completing Saint Paul’s sentence: how can the gods meet us face to face, till we have faces.