SMILES

‘Smiles,’ is the longest word in the English language because there’s a mile between the first and last letter!  Smiles cost nothing so give them away!  A smile needs only about six facial muscles to be activated but a frown needs up to twenty!

Apes do not have any muscles designed to make any facial expressions like smiles and frowns but humans have delicate cheek muscles so that they can smile.  In contrast apes have only one enormous cheek muscle to produce strong eating movements with the mouth. 

Human babies even smile in the womb!  They are born to recognise and appreciate a smile!  Here‘s a challenge for evolution because there is no selective advantage in a baby acquiring the ability to smile!  Blushing is another phenomenon in humans not found in any other living thing.  A blushing face occurs when the brain increases the blood flow to the skin by about fifty times.  Smiles and blushing show that humans are emotional beings designed to communicate feelings to others.  Researchers have made the amazing discovery that we can make up to 10,000 facial expressions.  In contrast apes can make only a handful and some of them are not very nice!

Our ability to vary our facial expressions is only useful if these different expressions can be recognised.  Remarkably our brain has the amazing ability to recognise subtle expressions very quickly.  This is why we can find it difficult to keep a straight face or to hide a guilty look.

When the boasting Apostle Peter denied that he knew Jesus, Jesus simply turned and looked at him and he burst into tears!  The Bible says, “Be sure your sin will find you out.” [ Numbers 32:23 ]  It only takes a glance from God to make you feel guilty.