Lately, the thing I want most in my life is to be able to have integrity, so that what I say I believe is actually how I live. I pray that my words and actions will be proof of my core beliefs.
My rough definition of Integrity is all of the pieces coming together to form one whole. The more the pieces harmonize, the better the quality of the final product.
When I taught Sunday School, once upon a time, I explained integrity as the pieces of a quilt. The various blocks, sewn together, create one blanket and the quality of the blocks make up the quality of the quilt. The more the blocks agree with a beautiful central theme, the more beautiful the quilt becomes.
Quilting is a craft that is at its best when the quilter relies entirely upon her own imagination and vision to make the quilt. Some are crazy and others are highly structured. It is the quality of the vision of the quilter, her personality and the materials she uses that makes it beautiful and unique.
It is an adventure in itself, discovering the theme for my life and choosing and trimming the blocks. I want the blocks of my life to harmonize around one good, central theme. I want it to be the most beautiful theme I can find and I want to use "blocks" (how I use my time, what I read, who I hang out with,etc.) that are as beautiful as the theme itself. What I hope, finally, is that anyone who approaches my life from any angle will find something beautiful to look at.
Day and Night
14 years ago
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6 comments:
You have more integrity than 99.9999% of the people I have ever met. I love you.
I love this image of the quilt... good for me to contemplate as I shape this next phase of my life and the type of mother I want to be... You're inspiring as always, Grandma T!
Is it safe to say that the visual image of not having integrity would be pieces of a quilt, unassembled, in chaos? Or maybe of the quilter hastily ripping off a piece at a time, leaving new pieces attached unfinished and unraveling... Integrity is a big word for Matt and I these days... It's a very precious thing to find in someone. :)
Wow, Stepha, those are amazing questions. I was thinking that a quilt without integrity would be one that is full of uneven seams, clashing colors, no central theme-- especially no central theme. You and I know that a crazy quilt can be one of the most beautiful kinds of quilts, but that's because its parts are unified by the ideas that come from the heart and mind of the quilter.
A quilter who has no central theme or direction in mind would be one who can't put the thing together. She would be tearing pieces apart, frustrated in her effort to make things fit, undecided about the pattern she is trying to create. She might start and stop over and over again. She might even give up and go to another project, hoping for a better result.
One of the most impressive things about great quilters is their staying power. They cut and pin and stitch, day after day, until the quilt they imagine becomes real. They have a vision for what will be.
The Shakers had a saying: "Simplicity of heart is to will one thing." Integrity is settling on the one thing around which one's life will be organized. The better and purer the thing one chooses, the more beautiful and peaceful the result will be.
Thanks for your insight and question!
Thanks for mulling that over with me. I feel that visual is what I am seeing in someone's life right now. It is really, really hard to watch. It makes you want to cry. I really, really like that definition:
"Simplicity of heart is a will to one thing", "will to one thing" being the key part for me... if one has only a compass, or even one star to follow, you can navigate the dark, open sea... Without that, everything is just tragic and lame, and never moving forward...that quilt just never begins to look like much of anything, does it?
oops, ignore my typing errors in there...
"to will one thing" ;)
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