See Me

Fifty years ago, in the 1970s, developmental psychologist Edward Tronick researched interactions between infants and caregivers.  His study was called The Still Face Experiment, in which an adult caregiver or parent was placed face-to-face with their very young child.  The adult was instructed first to interact with the baby, look away for a moment, and then look back at them with a still face, devoid of all recognition, expression, or response.

In his book  The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World,  author Andy Crouch relates what happened next in each and every instance:

 “The videos of these experiments, which last only a few minutes, are wrenching to watch, as the adults feign indifference to the children’s presence while the children exhibit greater and greater degrees of dysregulation, writhing in frustration and ultimately collapsing in distress.  That is the result of just a few moments of deprivation.  When children are deprived of this kind of recognition and mutual attention for months or years, they may possibly survive – but they do not thrive.”   

Watch the video here.

What happens when those interpersonal connections are broken?  Deprived of recognition and love that each person so incredibly needs, even at such a young vulnerable age, what happens?  The baby does everything to get the caregiver’s attention to be seen and heard.  And when there is no response, the child gives up.  Over time, without recognition or relationship, desperate people do desperate things to be seen.

I read Crouch’s book the same week as the Buffalo and Uvalde massacres in June 2022, both conducted by teenage boys with an arsenal of firearms and desperate hearts aching to be known and seen.

We grieve for the greatly-loved victims, their lives cut short by unspeakable violence.  But Jesus also cries for the perpetrators.  These incredibly broken young men are precious in His sight too.  What happened and what might have been saddens us all.

"Look me in the eye," those babies tried everything to say.  See me.  Is that what these young men were desperately trying to cry out?  See me?

We were wired for relationship by our Creator, which is why God says radically in Scripture:  Love your neighbor.  Love the stranger.  Love even those who do not like you.  See them. Look them in the eye. Forgive.  Help them get their ox out of the ditch, even if it’s their own fault. Respond to them with the unexpected grace that always takes us by surprise. Real love is not an earned commodity.  Love says, “I see you.”

Do others just see a still face, an uncaring countenance in us?

We all struggle with something.  And we all have people in our lives who at some point loved us through our behaviors, imperfections, and resistance.  Through a difficult season, years of tumult, or for a profound moment, they looked into our faces and did not turn away.  They responded in some way. And they very well –even unknowingly-- may have pulled us back from the edge of despair and pointed us to a different trajectory for our lives.

We are surrounded by opportunities to pay attention, see, hear and love others daily. Look me in the eyes, those babies tried to say.  See me. 

People may not remember your name or what exactly you said or did, but they will remember forever how you made them feel and that you responded to them.

We have the capacity to love because God first loved us.  Eight hundred years before His birth, the prophet Isaiah wrote of Christ:  “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?  Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.  Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands…”  Isaiah 49. 15 

And when we know that we are so beloved by Him, we can pursue the Image of God in those around us.

Precious in His sight.