pinky problem

take a look at this:



maybe i have an extreme case here, but i want you guys to try it to... try bending each finger, one at a time, at your middle knuckle. as you see in the little clip above, i cannot move my pinkie (have you ever tried spelling that word??? spell check says it is spelled that way) without my ring finger mimicking it's exact movement. if i go slow, if i go fast, it's all the same. and if i hold my ring finger and then try to bend my pinkie, my pinkie can't move.



i noticed this in the middle of LOFT the other night. i don't know how it came about, but it did... so i sat there, over and over, trying to keep my ring finger from moving when i bent my pinkie at that knuckle. i couldn't do it.



and for the sake of this post, i hope all of you have the same pinkie problem that i do.

so there are two ways you can look at this problem. one, you can look at it from the point of view of ring finger, or you can look at it from the point of view of the pinkie.

lets start with ring finger... lets call it Ricky.

Ricky is a pretty cool kid... goes to Calvin college (cause that's where cool kids go, of course), and on his own is a pretty strong individual. makes his own decisions based on his thoughts and beliefs and "bends" on his own accord (this is where you look at your hand and demonstrate the ring finger moving all by itself). but then ricky meets petey (the pinkie). petey... well, he's not so cool... (the rare exception to the cool status calvin students hold). but ricky and petey become friends anyway because, hey, petey knows how to have fun. but you know what, the more ricky and petey start hanging out, the more things start to change. pretty soon, whatever petey does, ricky does too... and although ricky notices it, he can't really stop it (and if you haven't already, look to your hand and demonstrate the pinkie moving as the ring finger helplessly follows the same movement).

the bible warns us about yoking (2 corinthians 6... check it out). and even when you know what a yoke is, sometimes that visual still doesn't work because you don't understand how it feels. but you know what, i sure feel that when i am moving my pinkie, my ringfinger is pretty much yoked to it. and i think that we need to not only be careful about who to be yoked to, but what we are yoked to.
now. there's nothing wrong with getting to know petey pinkie... hanging out with petey pinkie. but, when you start ditching your beliefs and ways for petey's ways is when you are going to fall in the trap of yoking and taking up that lifestyle as well.

try something for me (if indeed you are one of those who have the pinkie problem like me). grab hold of your ring finger, and hold it in place, firmly. now, try to bend your pinkie at that same knuckle as earlier. if your pinkie problem is as serious as mine, your pinkie does not move at all... i am serious, not AT ALL. maybe try your left hand... i dunno, i think i have issues. however, as i have asked people to perform these things for me, i have found that most people don't have it as extreme as i do.
but
imagine that your pinkie doesn't budge like mine doesn't budge...again, for the sake of this post.

now go back to ricky and petey. say instead of completely "yoking" himself to petey, ricky got to know petey while still holding fast to his own faith and beliefs. eventually, who knows...petey might start to take after ricky (go ahead, demonstrate it on your fngers, and hold your ring finger "fast"). yet another reason not to avoid "petey" but to know them while not yoking yourself... because we are not just called to not conform, but we are also called to be a light (check out matthew 5)... and one way we can do that is how we live around others.

on that note, i will make a quick statement from the point of view pinkie.
we have seen that the pinkie is an influencial position to hold.
so my challenge... as a pinkie, spread the joy and the love...
look at this video for an example. pinkie is very happy, and when pinkie is happy, pinkie "dances"... and when pinkie "dances", see what happens to the other fingers??? they can't help but join in the "dance." so if you have never seen a happy pinkie, this is what it looks like... complete with shiloh saying "happy pinkie".

so that's it... i dunno why, but for some reason i am feeling a bit more "iffy" about this post... maybe cause it's not necessarily applicable to all (rebekah *cough* who can bend her pinkie independently of her ring finger). but bear with me, as i am bound to put out a few random posts that, well, are random.

thanks for getting through this one.

ciao