The Eyes Have It!

 

Early in my broadcasting career I learned an interesting fact. Radio listeners can hear you smile! I try to remember that whenever I am on air today. Does the same hold true for face-masks? I wonder. Some folk say that you can still see someone is smiling in their eyes. In this photo that seems to be the case, but is it always so? I think that the widespread muzzling of populations, whilst a necessary precaution against the spread of infection, robs us of one very important feature of healthy life. The ability to give and receive smiles.

My wife has a friend in Wales, Sheila by name, and when we lived there they used to go out walking together. Sheila would often squeeze Diane's arm as strangers approached and say 'let's see if we can get one back!'. With that, they would both smile at the passer by and very often were met with indifference, but sometimes got rewarded in return! It's not just a virus that can be infectious - so can a kindly smile!

Despite there being drastic differences between human cultures and the way we express ourselves, psychologists have discovered that facial expressions have a degree of universality that transcends time and place. There are thousands of ways of moving the muscles in our faces to express and reinforce one of the six basic emotions: anger, disgust, enjoyment, fear, sadness, and surprise. 

And the most powerful and profound facial expression of them all? The smile.

Smiling is universally considered to be a way we display joy. It can communicate our internal world to people on the outside, and it can be a welcoming sign to new people. It speaks of security and well-being, and disarms the stranger with a hint of approach-ability and welcome.

So, if the face-mask is hiding this basic tool of communication and warmth, even in part, how can we replace or supplement it? Well, I suppose one way would be to look for opportunities to do random acts of kindness. To serve in humble ways, and in honour preferring others. Our social media posts should reflect our smile, not our scowl. Our words should be well-chosen to sift out negativity, gossip and grumbling. I read this in the newsletter of some missionary friends this week:

"I choose to turn from complaint, from seeing all that is wrong and lacking, and to acknowledge - even more, Oh Spirit of God, to celebrate - how you are at work in our work, in our church, in our lives (taken from Teach us to Pray by Gordon Smith)".

For God's sake - smile more please! And for your own sake too. It can make all the difference.

House Arrest

 I am under house arrest. Following my short trip to Newcastle in the North East of England I am now enduring at least 7 days of self-isolation, plus however long it takes for my Covid-19 test result to come back. Thankfully, if the result is negative, I will be released next week, but in a few days the NE of England will be reclassified as high risk due to an upsurge in cases, and I would be required to isolate for the full 14 days if I had traveled then.

I can pace around the garden but must not leave the premises. Yesterday the door bell rang. I opened the upstairs window and called out 'hello?' only to find a burly police officer standing outside. 'Just a welfare check' he claimed. 'Tell it to the marines' I thought, remembering the half a dozen folk who have been fined up to £10,000 for being caught outside their homes in the last few weeks.

In many ways, of course, those of us who have known chronic illness over the years, have been here before. 'Welcome to my world!' you might say. Long-term illness and pain isolates you. It cuts you off from human comfort and touch. Robs you of the joys of fellowship and the ability to go out and enjoy the outside world. And it's hard.

This isolation, without the right to an hour's exercise and no ability to go and buy goods at all, reawakens my sympathy for those who have been shielding during this pandemic. But it also clarifies for me the immense frustration that the Apostle Paul must have felt during his two year house arrest in Rome. Not only could he not go out for exercise, or attend church at all, he may well have been chained to a Roman soldier for much of the time as well!

Yet it is possible, even likely, that he wrote his famous letter to the Philippians during this period. It is an epistle marked by joy. The word recurs again and again. He prays with joy (1:4), rejoices that his chains have given him opportunities to share his faith (1:18), and chooses rejoicing in God instead of grumbling and complaining (2:17-18). He expresses joy at the gifts people were placing outside his door (4:10-14), and he not only expresses his own joy in God, but he urges folk who know Christ to 'rejoice always and again I say, rejoice!' (4:4).

So, I am going to try and treat this period of compulsory self-isolation in a more positive way. If you are shielding, or know someone who is, thank God for modern technology that keeps us in contact with others, and use it to be encouraged and to cheer others on. But, if you, like me, are tasting the long weary challenging days of house arrest, then I can do no better than recommend the letter Paul wrote from his Roman first century AirBnB.

After all, 'I can do all this through him who gives me strength' (Phil. 4:13).

Just Breathe

 I once forgot how to breathe. I had been given a much stronger dose of an opiate painkiller in a skin patch format - Fentanyl - many times stronger than conventional morphine. As in the cases where people overdose on this drug, either intentionally or otherwise, the patch suppressed my breathing mechanism. I very nearly died that day. A friend who was a nurse coached me how to breathe until the ambulance arrived, but the simplest and probably most reflex action of my life, breathing, had become a stranger to me. I will never forget the relief of being able to breathe again.

Covid-19 is a respiratory disease. It also attacks the immune system and other aspects of the body's defences, but it is as a lung disease that it has become notoriously efficient. This makes it terrifying to watch sufferers struggling for breath, and survivors left often unable to catch enough breath to speak. A colleague of mine, who survived a potentially deadly attack of the virus and a spell on a ventilator, was advised to do breathing exercises as part of his recovery. He said that the medics also advised him that good breathing etiquette was one way of preparing to be able to face the onslaught of the disease. Whether that is right or not, we don't use much of our lung capacity most of the time. It is good to stand up straight, exhale fully and then inhale to a fuller extent than we normally do.

We need to breathe spiritually too. The Holy Spirit is pictured as God's breath or as a gust of wind, to help us to realise how much we need his presence and power in our lives. In the original picture of God's creating power he is said to have breathed into the nostrils of the first human being and he became a living being. Some believe this is the moment when mankind received its soul or spiritual nature. Whatever, we are spiritual beings and we need God like we need to breathe.

I would never have imagined that I might forget how to breathe. Illness put me into that vulnerable place and I barely escaped with my life. There may be many reasons why we might forget how to have a spiritual life - illness can be one - but there's no time like the present to put that right.

Years ago we used to sing 'Breathe on me breath of God, fill me with life anew'. That still makes sense as a prayer today, especially in the time of a breathing pandemic.