Paper Clips Parable

[Thanks to Bill Moore for planting this seed in his weekly sermon!]

In 1958, Lloyd’s Bank of London undertook a study to find out what happens to a typical batch of paper clips as they are released throughout the workforce.

Out of their original batch of 100,000 paper clips, they found that:

·         3,916 were used to unplug tobacco pipes;

·         5,308 were used to clean under fingernails;

·         5,423 were used to pick teeth or scratch ears;

·         7,200 were used as hooks for belts, suspenders, or bras;

·         14,163 were snapped, broken, or otherwise twisted during phone conversations;

·         19,143 became mock card game chips;

·         approximately 25,000 became lost, swept up off the floor or thrown away.

Only 20,000 of the original batch of paper clips (20%) were actually used to clip papers together.

So-o-o … It turned out that only a minority of these paper clips, each one created for a specific function, was ever used for their intended design! The overwhelming majority were used to fulfill some ancillary purpose.  

The saddest fact is that more paper clips (25%) were swept away and left unaccounted for than were used for their originally designed purpose.

However, the “flip side” of this story is that such a simple device was found to have so many different – ancillary – uses.  And there was no way of tracking how many different uses EACH ONE of the paper clips was called upon to fulfill, or (since they are re-usable) how many different batches of paper any one of them was called upon to bind together! 

Here’s the parable:

The paperclip is of no use unless it is bent to the specifications of its designer.  It starts out as a straight piece of wire. 

 It must be FLEXIBLE/MALLEABLE (VULNERABLE) enough to be shaped into something useful, yet strong enough to retain its useful shape and perform under pressure. 

A “hardened” wire that refuses to be bent – as in “I’m just fine the way God made me!” or “You can’t hurt me!” – will remain much more limited in its usefulness and utility.

It remains an enigma how such “hardened” wires can become so twisted over time – so “bent out of shape” from internal intractability as to become even less useful:

 How like life that is!  Flexibility, malleability, and vulnerability … accompanied by core strength and resilience of character … are key hallmark elements needed for successful navigation of life.  With these elements in place, one can fill many different purposes in many different circumstances over time.  Strengthening our constitution, then submitting / subjecting ourselves to great purposes and allowing ourselves to become BENT to the specifications required for those purposes undergirds our greatest hope for a  future worth everything that’s in us.  Quartermaster