Quite early on in the pandemic, I saw a news report about medical staff on a ward treating coronavirus patients. The staff had become deeply concerned that their personal protective equipment was doing more than isolating them from the highly contagious virus but was also 'depersonalising' them when they interacted with the patients. Rather than seeing the concerned face of a caring nurse or doctor, patients were seeing gowns, goggles, visors and facemasks, like something in a laboratory or in a science fiction movie... It was adding to the sense of isolation the patients were already feeling. So the staff printed pictures of themselves, unmasked and smiling, and started to wear them along their with their id badges so that the patients could see the human being behind the PPE. It was such a simple yet thoughtful gesture and I am sure it must have made a real difference to everyone on the ward. No doubt it was an idea widely used.

And now facemasks will become more and more the norm for the rest of us in daily life, on public transport for example, and we will wonder what the face behind the mask is like. We will have to work at it if it is not to make us feel even more disconnected from one another. We tend anyway to wear metaphorical masks in an attempt to hide our true selves from other people. Then again, in these days of social media influencers it seems to me that the image we want to convey outwardly has become the chief thing for so many. There is nothing new in this of course, only that the age of Instagram has given new drive to the notion of putting over the right image. But what about the real person behind the mask, whether it is a face mask or the carefully constructed outward appearance in the latest post or in anticipation of the next conversation on Zoom?

God is not taken in by the masks and images we construct for ourselves, nor does he need our pictures to show Him what we are really like underneath. It is people who look on the outward appearance, and can be taken in or put off by appearances, but God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). This is a sobering thought. He sees us all as we really are - He "knows the hearts of all the children of mankind" (1 Kings 8:39).