Not all people's faces work the same way
Mar 18, 2021
Not all people's faces work the same way. Some leak all their feelings and others have the same face for nausea as they have for nostalgia, and it barely differs from their sleep face and celebration face. Then there are the never-smilers and the permanent-grinners, the "you're not subscribed to this channel" poker faces, the perpetually surprised faces (who may or may not have had work done...), and the rubber faces who can express ecstasy and agony in high definition.
All these faces are like the Bible. The truth is in there, but you need the Holy Spirit for accurate interpretation, as well as a humble heart. Add the willingness to ask questions with sincere interest, and you MAY just arrive at an accurate reading!
Why this now? Because my heart breaks when those with the unreadable faces get labeled by the feeling leakers or smile fakers (did I forget to mention those?) as unapproachable, standoffish, hateful, blunt, or passive-aggressive.
I hear the unfounded and unkind comments: "They don't want to talk. They don't feel a thing. One can just see how hard they are. They're hiding something, I can tell. You just can't trust a person like that."
I want to challenge you and me to be less sure of a superficial reading. This is where the unreadable would likely have wanted to insert a "preach it" or "amen!" if it weren't so unnecessarily expressive to do so.
The benefit of the doubt is a synonym for love in this regard. If the face puts you off, try to connect with the person behind it anyway. Several of my favorite people were a little harder to get to know. Some of them I still can't read fluently. Same as some parts of the Bible. Both journeys of discovery are worth it.
That is why the trees... When you understand Pine Trees and Box-Pines and Pine-Roses, you understand most of the often-unreadables. And you learn to love them just like that.