Having a World View Matters
My wife is an excellent chef. I say chef because she is more than a cook. (Not that being a cook is bad). She knows so much more than simply being able to cook. Our kitchen is filled with herbs, spices and a pantry full of every ingredient you can imagine. When I open the pantry my eyes glaze over and have no idea what to do with the stuff I’m looking at. My wife looks in that same pantry and her imagination runs wild with ideas for what she can create. It’s more than knowing how to measure quantities and mix ingredients. It’s a deeper understanding of how all these elements work together. This wholistic sense of making a meal brings about inspired results. I am very fortunate!
This is what a world view is. It isn’t faith, a moral code, a value system, or any single element of how we live or understand life. A world view is a wholistic way of seeing who we are, why we are and how we are to be. It integrates all these elements to help shape a collective view that gives us a deep sense of our purpose and informs our actions and perspectives. In addition, there isn’t just one world view that fits all. Literally each of us in our own way has a world view that informs our sense of being and what our purpose is on this journey.
My wife and I love to watch “Chopped” on the Food Channel. The contestants are given the exact same ingredients and asked to make their own unique creation. It is fascinating to see how these chefs can take the exact same elements and develop something very different from each other. What contributes to this is that each of these chefs brings to this competition their own particular culinary world view which informs how they create and why. They even have to justify and explain why they created what they did.
Having a world view is so important. It allows us to live more authentically in our speaking and acting. It helps us to have the framework to understand why we do what we do and for what purpose. As leaders and people of faith, to be effective requires that we act with integrity and authenticity. Having a clear sense of our world view is fundamental in enabling that to happen.
What is your world view? What are the elements that you have integrated to help form that? And, most importantly, how does this world view influence how you make decisions and live into your faith?
