Doggy Smilest

I was in a local big box today, and I noticed one of those dog food ads.  You know, the ones where the dogs have human teeth instead of authentic canines.  Not only do the dogs have anatomically anomalous choppers, but those teeth fill their mouths with a cheesy and exceedingly human grin.

It's all so very silly.  And it's all so very effective.

I giggled in my superiority for a few minutes.  Then I realized that the ads were simply taking a natural pet-owner tendency and extrapolating.  

The logical extension is not even all that far a stretch.  We look at our Viszla as she looks back at us.  She has some extra upper lip which oftentimes gets hung up on her lower teeth.  She then presents a variety of human-looking grins, smirks, and even frowns for our amusement.  She has no idea why we are smiling back at her with love and amusement.  Of course, she doesn't care.  It works for her.

We endow the world around us with characteristics we recognize.  We look in the mirror of reality and expect to see...ourselves.  We put human teeth in dog mouths. We show a family of bears using and terribly concerned about the softest toilet paper.  We attribute human thoughts and speech to our cats, canaries and chameleons.  We want the rest of the world to look like us--to be like us.  And we will stretch our imagination to the limits in order to make that so.

"The point," write Ori and Rom Brafman, "is that similarity, no matter what form it takes, leads to greater likability."  (Click: The Forces Behind How We Fully Engage with People, Work, and Everything We Do, Kindle Location 1252).  The brothers Brafman are writing about the elements of what they call "quick-connect intimacy."  Similarity is one of the main elements of such quick connections.

Oddly enough, the nature of the similarities isn't all that important.  It's not the case that we have to be like-minded in deep intellectual or emotional areas.  Having similar names or birth dates can be enough.  People who like the same football team have an immediate and powerful connection.  I think about sitting on the "wrong" side at a high school football game.  There is immediate and mutual animosity, even though I may have no prior relationship with anyone in the stands.  And there is a tremendous relief when I make my way to the "right" side of the stadium and site with people who are like me.

This affection for in-group members operates below the conscious level.  The Brothers Brafman describe a study that connected donation amounts to having the same first name.  The subjects didn't know they were providing information about the psychological impact of similarity.  On the way out from the fictitious experiment, they were solicited for a charitable donation.  This is where the real experiment began.  Some of the subjects were solicited by fundraisers who had (at least on their name tags) their same first name.  When that happened, the subject doubled their contributions, compared to the control group.

We Christians are in the "one-anothering" business.  Welcome one another, we are told.  Do good for one another.  Most of all, love one another.  This is fairly easy to do in response to people who are like us.  Our major call, however, is to do this "one-anothering" for people who are strangers, sojourners and even enemies.  How can we do this?

It is clear that this requires a conscious decision to expand the frame of "similarity."  We know that others are also people for whom Jesus Christ has died.  We know that others are also people created and beloved by God.  We know that others are also our "neighbors" in a way that matters to God.  The "one-anothering" business simply swims against the irresistible current of normal human psychology unless we can discipline ourselves to expand that frame of similarity.

If we can put a human smile on a doggy, we can seek to put a familiar face on a stranger.  This is one of the primary marks of being a real Jesus follower.