Roundness of the face due to increased fat deposition laterally seen in patients with hyperadrenocorticalism, either of endogenous (e.g., cushing's disease) or exogenous origin, such as the use of cortisone-like drugs as therapy.
-Hippocratic Facies

Photographer D. Schwarz in Jevíčko (Bohemia, Czechia). Cabinet card circa 1910
yup someone commented they had angel facies.

When we consider every life, every one is beautiful. Looking in and up. That's how we look at people, i remember my Lit teacher once told me.

The people, they saw the face of an angel- Stephen. But they did not look in and up, they did not see the beautiful soul of a an ordinary man who loved them because he was first loved. Tho he be the first Christian martyr, he beheld the glory of God beyond beholding the physical pain inflicted upon him.

The people, they saw red. Not the redness of the blood of Christ which bled for them to bring them unto eternity. They saw the redness of fury and anger because Stephen spoke the truth. i dont know what Stephen saw as he looked at the faces of anger surrounding him. they were definitely not mirrors of his own angelic facies.

Rembrandt's "The Stoning of Stephen" from the year 1625

But I believe Stephen saw something more.

(Acts 7:55-56) But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. "Look," he said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."

As he beheld the glory of God, he saw something too, which I would like to use this line from the musical Les Miserables "To Love Another Person Is To See The Face Of God". i only just recently heard this line from playing the soundtrack at home while busying myself with packing. again and again i returned to this track, almost the last song sung by Jean Valjean.

And each time i heard it, it drew tears from me, it shook me from within.

Yes, clearly, as Stephen preached and was stoned, as he gazed at every angry face, every face blackened with anger, every face flushed, every face hostile, every face scowling-- he saw the face of God. God, who created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27) And God is Love. (1 John 4:17)

No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John 4:12) To Love Another Person Is To See The Face Of God. the comment in the hyperlinked article cannot be more true: to see the face of God in the unloved and the unlovable is more likely to advance our respective journeys to the Light.

How many unloved have we met? How many unlovable have we labelled? How many because they have no angelic facies, because they rubbed off unlovable 1st impressions, henceforth we ignore or detest or gossip about?

Paul, who witnessed Stephen's stoning, giving approval to his death (Acts 8:1), but later came to know God, speaks clearly in 1 Corinthians 13:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

“When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love.”-C.S. Lewis

Facies. Faces. Facades.

Easy to see. Easy to label. Easy to link & hyperlink & hyper-hyperlink.

But, do we see the ones within? Look in and up. Before u create the hyperlinks, see the One.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. (Matthew 5:8) To see the face of God, first purify our hearts from prejudices, hatred, easy judgements. Cleansed with hyssop to be clean, washed to be whiter than snow.

Angel facies or not, pray this be in my heart as I behold every person:

To see God in every bit of His creation and... to LOVE.

This, underlined, bolded, italicised.

Amen.

i dont need to reiterate the point that i'm kinda unfaithful to this space.. but often duty calls me to more impt things in life

of reflections that have not much time to be written/typed out yet they have time, and they MUST be inscribed upon mind and heart

placed in a safekeeping treasure chest- 4 chambers of the heart, the gyri n sulci of the brain

even, even if with age, these organs age physiologically..

even, even if sometimes these deposits are only meant for oneself..

even, even if sometimes the lips and tongue wish to roll forth these experiences..

even, even if someday i have to be laid to rest..

But, let me not forget how experiences shared can convict ourselves more

let me not forget how experiences shared grow us in life as ppl in turn share theirs

after all if we keep our money in our bank, the interest is so little, we dont increase it much..

so experiences alike oughta be taken out, circulated, and yeah the Multiplier Effect will run wild, real wild:)

let me keep my side of the promise to June.. albeit it come very much later~heh

******

so since the last time i left off, much has happened...

completed the 3rd yr exams (praise God He's ALWAYS so gracious!!!),

re-entered the whitewashed walls of a place called hospital

1st to CGH Emergency Department

here i learnt that life and death r but a thin bare line across. aye it pained my heart..

out of the 5 CPRs i performed at the resuscitation rooms, only 1 made a comeback, of which i dont even know if he lived to survive further. and in the process, i learned the hard truth also tt we dun jus do repeated CPRs on and on, but somehow there's a time to stop. becos even if we bring back the pulse, breath and bld pressure of the patient, he/she was already down more than 15min, and hence technically no brain perfusion. so when the downtime is >15min, it is difficult to continue an adequate resuscitation. one doctor said when we asked: "You must know the truth.. are u really saving the patient? or is it the drugs that are causing him to seem to recover? u can continue to pump in more drugs, but No One who has a downtime of more than 15min ever walks out of the hospital again, not one."

this "truth"... reminded me about this bible passage when Jesus stood on trial before Pontius Pilate:

Jesus Before Pilate (John 18)
28Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. 29So Pilate came out to them and asked, "What charges are you bringing against this man?"
30"If he were not a criminal," they replied, "we would not have handed him over to you."
31Pilate said, "Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law."
"But we have no right to execute anyone," the Jews objected. 32This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled.
33Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"
34"Is that your own idea," Jesus asked, "or did others talk to you about me?"
35"Am I a Jew?" Pilate replied. "It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?"
36Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."
37"You are a king, then!" said Pilate.

Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."
38"What is truth?" Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, "I find no basis for a charge against him. 39But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release 'the king of the Jews'?"
40They shouted back, "No, not him! Give us Barabbas!" Now Barabbas had taken part in a rebellion.

Emergency Dept left me mulling over the state of humanity again, and how as the physical life comes to an end, i wonder if these ppl hv a greater hope of eternal life? that is the greater truth.

yet i remember God's convenant in the rainbow, as written in Genesis 9:

12 And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13 I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth."
17 So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth."

or in my lap for that matter?

that's me struggling to keep the bunch of girls up during CNY this year during out teen/youth fellowship CNY visiting.