tapestry

Last month when I was talking with my life coach the idea of a balanced life came up. While I blogged on this a while back, I'm thinking now that I've been working with a poor metaphor and talking about balancing things isn't the way to go.

You see, when you live a balanced life, it automatically means that you live a compartmentalized life. For most people, this means that you have work on one side of the scale and family on the other, and you're trying to make sure things equal out. But are things like work, family, community service and the such really supposed to be broken apart? I'd say the answer is no, rather, I'd say that they all blend together.

So, what's the alternative metaphor? I'm thinking, rather than seeing life as a scale to balance, we need to view it as a tapestry to weave. In this tapestry, different things that you're involved in form the different colors. Now, as you move through life, some colors will come and go while other colors will be dominant for a season and then fade during another.

Of course, whenever you're weaving something like a tapestry, you need those main threads that run through the entire piece and hold the whole thing together. It seems to me, that this is where your faith comes into play. While it's not always obvious on the surface, it's the steady foundation that holds all of life together and prevents the tapestry from becoming a frayed mess.