Hmm. This is quite an abstract question. I have to scratch my head for a moment. Yet our values are very important; they are the basis on which we shape our lives.
Your values are the beliefs and principles that you believe are important in the way that you live and work. They (should) determine your priorities and guide your decisions and the way you act towards others. (source: Mindtools)
Here are examples of 30 values:
Values are the foundation of your existence. From them, you shape your actions.
Just before we moved from Osijek, Croatia, we were looking for a house in the Netherlands. Our Romanian friends knew that and sympathized with us. One day, our friend Ileana asked, “Don’t both of your parents have a house? And haven’t the children flown the nest? Why are you looking for a house? You can move in with them, can’t you?”
I told her that in the north of Europe, we look at it a little differently. We can stay with them for a week, maybe two, but the intention is that we are going to make our own way and provide housing for our family ourselves.
She then asked somewhat reservedly and suspiciously, “Aren’t they Christians?”
I said, “Yes, they are.” For Ileana, hospitality was a very important core value through which she shaped her Christian faith.
They share their table, but not their bed.
From the letter to Diognetus, 150 AD
Simplicity, beauty, sustainability, hospitality and Godliness. (The last one is a nice old word) These are important values for me. Everything you see here is homemade or reused and received from someone else’s abundance.
In the garden house, the bed and prayer chair are secondhand. The tiles are from a friend from the neighborhood. The embroidery is the prayer for our children that I made when we started our nomadic life. A space without plants is a space without life!
Simplicity and purity are a channel to the true, good, beautiful and sincere.
For simplicity and purity, I started the Garden of Abundance – deeply rooted and completely planted in the now and bearing fruit.
Perhaps we should follow Aristotle, who viewed values from the perspective of virtue development. A virtue is a character trait – an attitude, a personal trait – that makes you do good. Virtues provide the answer to the question “What makes something good?” In Aristotle’s view, the ideal of virtue lies in the middle; only when we find the right middle ground in our actions do we function as a good person. This gives qualities such as being courageous, committed or responsible. They are ideals between too much and too little.
You see something of that moderate ideal in the letter from the second century in which Christians are described: The letter to Diognetus.
One of the descriptions about Christians and hospitality is in which you see that ideal between too much and too little. It is my favorite quote that also indicates a boundary. And it is good for your marriage
“They share their table, but not their bed.”
From the letter to Diognetus, 150 AD
Can you name a number of important core values that help give direction to your life? Please let us know in the comments.
This post is important because in the workbook, where you are invited to develop your personal Rule of Life, you get the question: What are your values? You can read more about the workbook here: Theworldaroundmytable.com/book
And of course, you can still order it, or give it away as a present to a friend.
