Flying Finger Theology

A post by Peter Swanson:

The other day I heard some news about an old friend of mine that shocked me to the core. He was working for his dad, who owns a boat upholstery company, using some of the heavy-duty machines. Unlike old timers who didn't wear wedding rings if they works with machines and tool, my friend was recently married and had his wedding ring on, and it got caught in the machine, and ripped his ring finger off his hand and sent it flying across the room. They have since re-attached it and most of it will survive, though with questionable functionality at this point.

You hear stories of this sort here and there, but when it is about someone you know with a finger you have seen and probably touched it brings the reality home, and this news was surprisingly shocking to me. You hear news like this and you spontaneously double over, and reach for your own finger making sure it is still there and isn't going anywhere and plead with it to stay. Visions flash in your mind of your finger, your very own finger, flying through the air away from you, up and arching down, hitting the wall and falling to the ground, lying still. You look at your hand and something is wrong.

Wow. This imaginary experience that occurred to me on hearing the news prompted some reflection about why the thought sicked me out so much and caused me to shudder so deeply. Unfortunately the reflections require some rather gruesome examples, but in the end I found the path worth pursuing. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Here we go.

Where the shock wasn't: It wasn't an issue of blood. Blood doesn't bother me. It wasn't an issue of simply a severe wound. A huge stab wound to the stomach doesn't really bother me (to think about, that is), even though the amount of flesh that is broken, cut, and separated in such a wound is much greater than with the loss of a finger. I don't think is was the violence of the injury, the sounds and sensations that would accompany the ripping apart of a part of your body that is so strong that some people could probably hang from with their whole body weight. I don't think it was even that it was a chunk of my body that is now separated from the rest of me.  I had my appendix out and that doesn't bother me, and thinking about the removal of some piece of my body such as skin for a skin graft, or donating a kidney, or even if my ear was cut off doesn't really bother me (at least not as much as a finger). I really think that the majority of my shock was from the fact that it was a finger that was ripped off.

Aristotle says that the hand is the tool of tools. Almost any tool you use is itself used by the hand. The hand is the perfect tool of the soul. It is handier (ha!) than the greatest Leatherman with 300 uses, for the hand is what can put those 300 uses to use, along with thousands more. The hand is the ultimate übertool.

Even though there is a special relationship of persons to their hands, the hand is probably not the most special of all the bodily components. We receive knowledge primarily through eyes and ears and we express knowledge of various sorts with the tongue. Yet after these more knowledge/mind/soul related bodily components, I tend to think the hand is most important. Judge for yourself: If you had to lose one, which would you choose?

Eye or ears? 

Ears or tongue? 

Tongue or hands?

Hands or legs?

I think most people would agree with this order. But yet, I do not think I would be as shocked by seeing my eyeball fly across the room (I don't know what it would be to have your sense of hearing fly across the room), or my tongue fly across the room. To me, something remains most shocking about a finger (by finger I also mean the hand) even though I would rather lose a finger/hand than a few other things.  Why is the detached hand the most disturbing?

I think the reason is that seeing our own hand, detached from the rest of our body, possibly gently curling or bending slightly before coming to a still and silent rest on the floor, is the clearest illustration we could ever see of our own death. 

I don't think the eyes, ears, or tongue symbolize bodily death as clearly, and therefore even though they are more valued, they do not shock as much as the hand. 

How so? The eyes, ears, and tongue (maybe we could say the entire head) are in a sense "spiritual organs"--they are so closely associated with the soul that they do not seem to be as truly "body" as the rest of our body. When we talk about someone having a "nice body", we tend to exclude the head and face from the term "body". The head is like the soul's window for looking "onto" our body and therefore it is not as truly a part of our body as is from the neck down. In contrast to the head which merely looks, listens, and talks, the hands move!  They make things happen in the world. They sow, they reap, they bring the food to our mouths. They chop, they sew. They rescue, they kill. Their territory is Earth, while the head's territory is, in a sense, above the Earth, in the realm of knowledge and other people. 

The hands are much more directly and exclusively engaged with this life during this limited time on Earth, while the head can roam other ages, other worlds, and roam the universe as it pleases. The mind can be anywhere; the hand and only be hanging right there, by your side. It's humble, homebody existence is like that of the body itself: it sits there slouching in a chair while the mind is anywhere. The hand just hangs around until it is needed.

So I think the head possesses an affinity with the expansiveness and spirituality of the soul, while, in contrast, the hands possess an affinity with the limited-to-the-here-and-now engagement of the soul with direct material surroundings. So, if we aren't sick of metaphors, the head is the soul of the body, the hands are the body of the body. 

So back to the question: Why is the detached hand the most disturbing of all parts of the body? It seems to me that this is because of all the components of our body, the hands represent our bodily life the most clearly. Because of this, seeing your own hand (or finger) no longer being your own, being totally unmovable no matter how hard you want it to move, so close and yet in a totally different world. What used to be so integral to you, and so intimate with yourself, truly a part of yourself, is now a piece of dust. This lifeless finger shows us in miniature a vision of our dead body, lying still and unmovable. Ours, yet not ours.

Here is your finger alive and well, dancing at your request, running around, accomplishing tasks, making money, sewing upholstery, flying across the room, utterly lifeless. No exertion of will makes it wiggle, no flash of inspiration makes it spontaneously exclaim.  That could be your finger right now. Just because it is not, does that mean your finger right now is really that much different?  In less than an instant it could be still and silent. You are entirely made up of stuff like this, that in less than an instant could be a motionless pile of stuff on the floor. 

This is the horror of mortality. The detachment and death of a finger reveals to us that death is not some event that happens in the future: it permeates our very being, it is part of our very make-up. We are made of mortality. Death doesn’t come from without, it is built within. The David is made of marble; I am made of death.

To be sure, that is not all I am, as the David is not merely marble. But I cannot escape it.  How quickly the finger becomes lifeless! Right away it becomes lost from you and from life. Sure it might be able to be reattached depending on circumstances, but the vision it gives of the ultimate detachment of the entire body at death is not changed. Your life is utterly gone from it; your will and power can not extend to it, even though it may gradually go on by itself in some weird way for a time. Your life does not disappear from your finger as heat disappears from a coffee. Rather, your life disappears from your finger as your voice disappears from a telephone. The soul's life flowed through it for a time, but it never had that life even when it had it. As it is with the finger, so it is with the body. It too is alive, but it is not alive. This horrible mortality must be faced squarely before pat answers about the resurrection can be deeply appreciated. 

Look at your finger, bid it to remain happily attached to your hand, and rejoice in its life, but very soon the life and the finger will be parting. Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Yet let us not be morbid by ending with dust, for that is not where the story ends. Instead end with Paul, who continues on, giving believers hope based on God's plans and deeds: "For while we are in this tent (this body/bodily life), we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed (we do not want to be disembodied/die) but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.  Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us (believers) the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come."