Orange or Dip This Instant!

Orange or Dip

The orange is a spherical, solid mass of, well … orange. The attaching sections form the juicy parts we eat. These are protected by the outer peel. Both peel and flesh are orange in color. Hence the fitting name. This fresh food is beautiful in its own right, and a delight in every bite.

Move from the Floridian treat to the Mexican potluck fiesta favorite: seven-layer dip. Refried beans, guacamole, tomatoes, onions, cheese, olives, and sour cream. Take your chip and dig in. Go all the way from top to bottom and get all the layers smothered onto your crispy tortilla triangle. If you want just the guac, you’ll surely make a scene digging through the other layers to get there. Or, if you want just the olives, you’d be better off picking through Aunt Sally’s wilting bagged salad.

An orange and a pan of seven-layer dip. Both edible. Both consisting of different parts that form the whole. But an orange is an orange all the way through. You peel off one section, and you get an orange. You tear off a section on the other side, and you get the same orange. The fruit is simple. It’s clean. And it’s nature-grown.

Seven-layer dip, on the other hand, changes by the layer. Come at it from the side three layers down and you get cheese. Go straight to the bottom to get beans. Two totally different food groups. The dish is complicated. It’s messy. And it’s man-made.

If the word “integrity” comes from the word “integro” or “integer” and means “one” (and it does), can you claim your standing as an orange? Are you the same all the way through? If someone sampled who you are at work, would they get a different you at home? You may have many different layers or sections, but are they consistent?

If you note a disconnect in who you are around your coworkers than with your family, your boss and your waitress, your clients and your peers … are you perhaps re-making yourself for different audiences? Are you failing to be YOU through and through? Have you perhaps become … a bit of a dip?

“Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out.” Proverbs 10:9 (ESV)

“A lot of people think integrity means honesty. But it actually means your whole life is the same; that you don’t act one way with one group and act with another group a different way. You’re the same all over.” Pastor Rick Warren