The Psychology of Mirroring
by Susan
As an adult, I’ve learned to extract a lot more fun out of life than I ever did as a (boring) child. At almost every minute of the day, there is entertainment to be had, no matter whether a person is working, eating, talking, walking, or whatever. Don’t you agree?
One potentially amusing activity people naturally do with folks they like is called “mirroring.” As a way of establishing rapport, we imitate each other or respond in kind to a given statement or action. When I say, “Well, hello, Mr. B!” Bill, if he feels like playing along, will respond, “Well, hi, Mrs. M!” (We don’t imitate each other too exactly because that looks and feels like mockery, an expression of disdain.)
Sometimes people don’t want to engage in this verbal and behavioral play. Maybe they don’t like us, don’t get it, or can’t be bothered. When I visited Paris, France, several years ago, I would get radically different responses from waiters and shop clerks depending on whether I first engaged in light pleasantries (”Ca va?” “Ca va bien.” “Bien.”), or cut to the chase in my efficient American way (”Two baguettes, please.”) In the former scenario, whoever I dealt with would be warm and friendly for the rest of the interaction. In the latter, they would turn cold and taciturn, even brusque and rude.
God engages in this kind of play with us, where the initial kickoff occurred “in the beginning” when he created us “in his image.” He placed us in the best arena ever conceived, and explained the one rule of the game: “don’t eat from that tree.” It wasn’t long, though, before the beautiful symmetry was broken. By chapter 3 of the story, we had eaten from it, felt fear, sewn clothes, and hidden. Most of the rest of Scripture is devoted to showing how God tries over and over again to reestablish that early relationship of naked trust and delight. His all-hands-in appeal is made when he joins us in the physical form of Jesus, a form we recognize and relate to.
It’s a long, slow dance from where he started in making us like him to the incarnation when he made himself like us. But it’s all mirroring and all for the purpose of drawing us to him for life, for play, for fun and joy.
The question is do we have the will, wit, stamina, and spiritual discipline to respond in kind? How can we deliberately mirror God?
Tags: creation, dance, france, imitate, Jesus, joie de vivre, mirroring, play
September 14th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
An interesting question, Mrs. M, and a concept worthy of contemplation. I get the idea, certainly, that the One who created humans “in our image” appeared to humans in human form, and I’ve always liked that.
The idea can be pushed even further by including part of John’s first letter: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.” (I Jn 3.2, NASB)
That this is a form of mirroring on both sides, however, seems to imply that there is some physicality to the whole thing, and I’ve long believed that if there is any mirroring going on there, it is we humans who are responsible for it. The word we normally use to describe that, of course, is anthropomorphizing.
But let me take the physical out of it for now and say that I do believe we humans are unique in all of God’s creation because of the “image of God” thing, and I do believe that God has demonstrated both his love for us and his complete understanding of us through Jesus.
Whether or not I can demonstrate even a partial understanding of who God is in the way I look to the world (and to God) by being a reflection of him is a challenge indeed!
September 16th, 2008 at 9:13 pm
God gave us an example to follow in Jesus, and we wish our imitation would flatter him. But alas! Those are the kind of daily challenges we face.