Art Wirth,  October 1990

WHAT I CAME TO BELIEVE on my 6:30 a.m. rides on the Forest Park bike path:
"I believe in miracles----and mystery."
When I come to from my morning meditation on our backyard deck, my eyes light first on the birdbath with its reflections of a leafy limb and a cloud.
What a miracle that would be on Mars!
Then, out with the bike with its rattling steel baskets that let them know I'm coming.
I believe in the two birds flying in tandem against the sky. I'm grateful. Without their soaring, we would never have had the idea of flying.
Now I'm pushing up this hill. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. Oxygen in, carbon dioxide out. Thank you, trees----and me, for this nurturing exchange.
I'm entering the park. Time to get on with smile collecting. As they come I bet which will respond to my nod----and which will stare past into space. The women have become good at learning that stare----except this blonde jogger with her Doberman who gives me a bright smile.
What a miracle a smile would be on Mars!
As I pass the fountain at the Jefferson Memorial, the sun gets caught in the splashing.
They tell me I'm mostly water. I remember the chard in the backyard. When that chard and that sun and water interact just right, you get me on this bike.
What a miracle that would be on Mars!
I believe in Zen biking. I pedal, up and down, up and down, while that duck on the lake paddles----up and down, up and down. We're in this thing together.
Rattling along, I remember the mind-blowing film, "Birth of a Baby." I believe that there were 24 chromosomes from my mother and 24 from my father that came together in a transformation of energy to make me----the one and only me, and the one and only you. We haven't the foggiest idea why that is possible. In this miracle is our fundamental equality (no one got 49 chromosomes)----and our uniqueness and our inherent dignity. We ought never permit a violation of that for anyone.
I believe in pain. I feel it now in my back, and see it in the faces going by.
I believe in death----its nearness. In that tree, dried up and leafless on one side, and on the other side still bravely reaching toward the sky.
I love the old. They've been there.
Oh yes, just weeks ago a speeding car missed broad-siding my bike by only a foot.
I believe in the courage in facing dying. While they were preparing the hemlock, Socrates was learning a new tune on the flute. "What good will it do," they asked, "to learn a new tune on the flute when you are about to die?"
I believe in the resurrection of life. Right now I have in my wallet a photo of my granddaughter, Jessica.
And I do believe in the good. This universe with its galactic indifference makes possible friendship, humor, creativity, sexuality, compassion, love and truth.
What a miracle that would be on Mars!
And it has made possible creation of the democratic vision----of a human community of justice and freedom. (What a miracle that would be on earth!) And the possibility of struggling to sustain and extend that vision and the possibility of my betraying the vision by my fear, indifference and silence.
Finally, I believe I can learn from Phyllis Schlafly. She taught me, "What good does it do to have freedom of speech if I don't choose to use it?"
Enough already of the miracles.
What about the mystery?
What's it all about, Alfie?
I learned from Archibald Macleish in J.B. the only answer that satisfies me. "What do I know of the mystery of the universe?
Only the mystery----that there was a mystery."
 

Jack Tartar,  December 1990

I BELIEVE that I'm in good company here ----
I believe that little kids ought to have a chance ----
And older people, too.

I feel better when I'm kind to animals, even possums ----
And I've known a tree or two.

    ---- Life ----

When I was young I found out the facts about the tooth fairy ----
The Easter Bunny ----
Then Santa Claus. I stayed in denial a couple of years over him.

Hey ---- what about Jesus?
Did man create God in his own image?
If there is a God, I hope it likes me.

    ---- It must. ----

I believe in recycling.
I could embrace Shirley MacLaine (figuratively) ----
OR --- maybe next time I'd like "Jack Livingston Seagull," I think.

If there was a beginning ---- could it not be that a natural law made you and me?
A body in motion tends to stay ----
But why do a body get that way?

I don't know ---- I believe I don't know.
I believe ---- I don't know ---- Faith?  Trust?  Hope?  Acceptance?
I don't know.    But I BELIEVE.
 

Joe Tanaka,  December 1990

I BELIEVE that as we look farther and farther beyond the stars, and as we look deeper and deeper into the sub-atomic world, we see more and more of ourselves.

I believe that man developed community in his pursuit of food and shelter and safety.

I believe an inexplicable happening took place when man began to think. As his sense of community evolved, he began to experience aspects of morality and an awareness of beauty.

Because we now appear to live at the bottom of an ocean of polluted air and above an ocean of polluted water and atop a mountainous landfill, it is imperative for each individual to strive to leave this world better than he found it.

I believe that a man must live his life in such a way that he leaves a legacy of hope and good for future generations.
 

Kim Funcik,  January 1991

MY CREDO is based on lessons learned from rivers.

"You must travel the river, live on it, follow it when there is morning light, and follow it when there is nothing but dark, and the banks have blurred in shadows." ... Will Haygood

I seek trust and acceptance of life's processes by remembering that everything contributes to a larger, more logical picture than I can see at any given moment. A shrug or a smile will help me accept my journey, no matter what comes my way. Seeing the river's flow and trusting the movements of the moon and sun brings me renewal of faith and trust in God. I will endeavor to accept my life. It is taking me where I need to go.

I seek adventure since rivers and roads lead people on. The universe is unfolding perfectly. I don't have to hang on, clinging to the river bank. Learning to go with the flow feels wonderful. Charting a course ahead, steering around boulders and snags, choosing channels and branches, while still going with the flow. By listening to my inner voices telling me my feelings, needs, and passions, I accept myself and make better choices in traveling the river. I respect myself and go with the flow.

I seek to live in the here and now. The current of rivers and life is ever onward. I need balance between keeping my destination clearly in mind and yet also enjoying all the beauty along the way. Enjoying the moment makes possible a peaceful and patient pace on the river. I want to remember to stop if I try to push the river. It never goes any faster by pushing ... and if I stop pushing it gets there just the same.
 

Pam Triplett,  February 1991

WHEN I BEHOLD the miracle of my child, when I embrace my loved ones, when I rejoice in the goodness of human relationships, I believe in a god of love.

When I hear Mozart or Brahms, when I see beautiful works of art, when I read great literature, I believe in a god of beauty.

When I feel spring winds, when I stroke a puppy's fur, when I inhale the vast splendor of the out-of-doors, I believe in a god of nature.

When I know of hatred, poverty and war, I believe in a god of darker things.

I believe we are all children of the gods. We inherit our world. But like all children, we control our own destiny.
 

Barb Finch,  March 1991

I'VE COME TO BELIEVE that it's very difficult to determine what ... if anything ... I really, actually believe. In fact, it was such a difficult assignment for me that I thought about not doing it. But I knew that if I withdrew from this project, I would feel guilty. And having spent 30 years of my life in the fold of the Presbyterian church, I can tell you that if there is one thing I absolutely, positively DO believe in, it's Guilt!

But I also believe in other things. Things like a spiritual source ... a wellspring that enriches individual creativity and fosters caring communities, such as Eliot chapel, that give meaning to our lives and our work.

I believe that cosmic questions, such as "where do we come from," and "where are we going," are interesting intellectual puzzles, but not nearly so important as the most crucial question of all: "what are we doing, right here, right now?"

I believe that bad things happen to good people and that good things happen to bad people. Sometimes, good things happen to good people. When they do, I believe we should rejoice.

I believe that there is a fundamental flaw in a society where people who play sports earn more money than people who teach schoolchildren, where it is easier to buy a handgun than it is to purchase health insurance, and where there are more shelters for animals than for abused women and children. I believe that you and I should do something about this.

I believe that words should be more powerful than weapons, but I know that they are not.

I believe in immortality that is achieved through the children we nurture, the smiles and tears that we share, the touch we extend, and the time, talent and treasure that we contribute to others.

And finally, I believe that what I believe is not nearly as important as the way I behave.
 

Sue Videen,  April 1991

I BELIEVE in God, the ground of all becoming; the spirit that has worked through history to bring righteousness, goodness, justice and beauty; eternally creating cosmos out of chaos; possessing the power and the will to set right what is wrong and to bring good out of evil, but granting me the freedom to choose my own way; nowhere absent from the universe but working and moving through all creation; ever sustaining and inexorably drawing me in ways not always comprehensible to fulfillment of all the potentialities within me.

I believe that Jesus was one son of God, whose story tells me the essential truth that love, not force, is the heart of the creative process of the universe; whose life shows me how to live my own life in faith, selflessness, and commitment; whose passion symbolizes for me the hope that light will finally dawn over darkness.

I believe that all of us are sons and daughters of God, expressions each in his own way of God's self in human terms. I believe, also, that I have met and will continue to meet many christs in my own life, people who have shown me how to live in ways that are humanly worthy and divinely desired.

I believe in the holy spirit, that sense of being possessed and used by something outside myself but through which I become all I can be.

I believe evil to be not some radical distortion of God's intended perfection, but rather a refusal to grow, a rejection of the better possibilities, a continuing existence in narrow selfishness. I believe, rather, that God calls me to overcome evil by a life of devotion and a willing response to what I know is God's love and what I divine to be God's purpose for me.

I believe that in prayer I can enter into God around me and surrender to God within me.

I believe my life to be mine to live or not live as I wish, as long as I hurt no other creature and accept full responsibility for my choices.

I believe this life to be all there is for the bundle of electrical impulses and chemical reactions of which this body and personality are compounded, but I also believe that some indestructible core endures in a way beyond my comprehension and imagination.
 

Jennifer MacKenzie,  October 1991

LAST WEEK I happened to read a poem which the 17th century poet John Donne wrote on his deathbed. These are the first four lines:

This is what I believe:

I do not believe that I shall be made Thy music upon my death, but I believe that I am Thy music now. I believe that I must tune the instrument today, and every day, to be that music well.

What does this mean, "I am Thy music?" Sometimes it is best not to try to explain a metaphor, but simply to let it suggest whatever it suggests, especially when the explanation involves something as difficult as defining what music is! But I'll share my ideas with you, anyway.

I can begin by defining what music often is: often, it is a pleasing combination of the elements of melody, harmony, rhythm, phrasing and tone color. Yet as I get to know the work of such 20th century composers as Prokofiev, Charles Ives and Philip Glass, as well as the music of different cultures, I recognize that some music doesn't conform to a narrow definition. Music isn't always pretty. It doesn't always have a distinct melody. It may even incorporate sounds that we don't think of as "musical" sounds. It may be dissonant rather than harmonious. (Perhaps I need to expand my understanding of beauty, melody and harmony.)

As with music, so with life.

What all music does have, for me, is "significant form." Moreover, in ensemble music, the parts are subsumed in the whole, but every part is essential to the whole. This is why I must tune my instrument.

I can also define music by what it does, remembering all the times and places I've heard music played and sung. (This year's "singing revolution" in the Baltic republics is but the latest example here.) Music is that which arouses. Music is that which unites. Music is that which comforts. Music is that which inspires.

I am Thy music. We are Thy music. All is Thy music.
 

Larry Kehler,  November 1991

SIMPLY STATED, my credo is: "Live the best you can in the next 24 hours."

The Path I traveled to reach this place is a long and winding one. Last Year, John asked me if I would share my credo. I thought, "Sure. I can do that." But when I sat down to write, I found myself very confused. Luckily, when I read the next week's newsletter, I found that an Eliot group was forming called "In Search Of ......" I immediately inserted GOD in place of the dots and imagined that this group would hold my hand and clear away the fog that made it difficult for me to understand what I believed. Eliot had come through again! When I went to the first meeting, it was fairly clear that this was a great group of people, but that they were having some difficulty finding what they believed. I'm still meeting with that group, but I have found my beliefs by conducting a year-long conversation with myself. I would like to share that conversation with you.

The first 20 years of my life, I was exposed to my parents' religious teachings. God was up in the sky and if I did good things and was kind to others, then God would give me a good life. If I did bad things, God would punish me. It seemed God punished me a lot, like when He burned up my prized 1940 Ford.

When I was in college, I became interested in philosophy and fascinated with the logical interpretations of the existence Of God. If God gives us free will, how can he/she/it know all things in the future and be omnipotent?

As a founding member of the Nietzschean Society (Friedrich Wilhelm) of Indiana University, experiencing the tragedies of the sixties which included God punishing everybody, I was certain that God was dead.

My beliefs about life and God were not very important for the next 15 years, because I was on the business/career track. My credo was getting the next promotion and earning the most money. I worked 65-hour weeks and was very "successful" but not very happy. Then an event would happen that would change forever the way I would believe. My wife became very sick, and died. My 10-and 12-year-old daughters asked me why God would take away their kind and loving mother. I didn't have any answers, except to know inside that God was certainly dead.

In the last 12 years I have had time to review the events of my life and challenge the existence of God. Many other people I greatly admire are very certain that God is very much alive and is with them on a daily basis. I started taking very small "baby steps" of faith and trusting others' view of a "God of their understanding." I started reviewing what in my life's experience was of value. It turns out that, for me, the most highly cherished events, which touched my innermost being with a warm glow, were not the biggest promotion or the corner office overlooking the Arch or the new expensive car or the right house in the right neighborhood. It was a special few words from another human being, or a look and a hug that, without words, can communicate a depth of understanding and caring.

The valuable things in my life haven't matched my goals in life. I, like many of you, I suspect, had the mistaken view that "he who collects the most possessions in his lifetime is the most successful." I now believe that my life will be most successful if I am surrounded by friends who understand that mutual sharing and respect for life is the supreme value. That value guides how I try to live the next 24 hours in the best way that I can.

So, where's God in all of this? Eliot Chapel has given me a great deal in the 22 years I have come here, and I would expect it to help me spiritually when I was in need. But I was still having difficulty resolving my philosophical training and this God that I was trying to pray to. John spent a lot of sermon time talking about praying to God and expecting miracles from God, but I just could not accept a higher power with good enough hearing to listen to 800 million people praying 24 hours a day, with time to answer the requests.

Then, about a year ago, I found the spiritual bridge for me in the Minister's Musings column in the newsletter. It was from Suzanne Meyer, a minister in New Orleans. It described how God is not like a disc jockey playing individual prayer requests. Belief in God is a "systematic effort to develop inner resources adequate to meet life's demands. Praying to God is not about changing the universe to suit my needs, it is about changing me to suit the needs of the world. Talking with God is about being really honest with myself and recognizing that I don't often put my life at the service of the best. Prayer is about the struggle to broaden my narrow, self-centered perspective into contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view."

That brief four-paragraph newsletter item has greatly influenced how I view the world. I hope it helps explain the meaning behind my simple credo to "live the best I can for the next 24 hours."

That column closed with a prayer that I would like to use today:

Grant that I may be able to face what I have to face.
That I may be strong, but not hard.
That I may be brave, but not foolishly so.
That I may be truthful with myself and others.
That I may be slow to blame and quick to forgive.
That I may resist that urge to become cynical and bitter.
That I may dedicate my every task, no matter how humble or mundane, to some greater good.
And, if today be my last day on earth, grant that I may die with a sense of gratitude for all the good that I have received from others.
 

Bob Boyd,  December 1991

I BELIEVE in Contradictions.

I believe in a loving God whose grace sustains us when we cannot live alone --- but I believe that the universe I live in, the universe that God has fashioned, is indifferent to the suffering, and fear, and death of humans as of all living things.

I believe that each of us, even the most depraved, contains all there is to know on earth of love and charity, of courage and hope --- but I believe that the kindest and most loving of us can be mean and dishonorable and cruel.

I believe that the drive to live, to survive as a species and as individuals, is the strongest and most noble purpose of our coming together in community --- but I believe that we all, even the most selfless of us, feast on the deaths of other living things.

I believe that reason is the tool with which we can pry open the universal system of which we, and our reason, are parts, and come, as the years and centuries pass, to a better understanding of that which is happening around us and our place in it --- but I believe that reason and its public shadow, logic, are weak, and partial, and tentative, and gullible, subject always to the seduction of the emotions.

I believe that human feelings are mercurial, self-serving, and utterly beyond our control --- but I believe that our closest encounters with truth come when we set aside logic and analysis and listen in silence to the voices, human and transcendent, with which divinity continues to reveal itself.

I believe that it is every human's duty to become self-sustaining, requiring of others only those things for which fair exchange can be made --- but I believe that community means sharing, freely and without thought of compensation, whatever we have with whoever is in need.

I believe that every human has the right to live freely and joyfully and that government dare not interfere with that right --- but I believe that no human has the right to infringe on the freedom or property of another, and that government must protect both freedom and property, by law if necessary.

I believe that the search for truth is the force that drives our culture --- but that truth, if it ever revealed itself, would be fatal to life as all utopias are fatal to community, because it is the tension between contradictory realities that energizes all of our searching.
 

Eddie Dillon,  February 1992

WHEN JOHN ASKED ME if I would present my credo, I was delighted and immediately stimulated to do some rethinking of my beliefs. I expected to do this presentation within a few months, but then I found out that so many had agreed to give their credos that it would be over a year before I would present mine. Perhaps John put me near the end of the presentations because he thought that after age 80 I might have to learn some truths!

My thinking about God has certainly gone through many changes over the years. Over this past year I have been writing and rewriting my credo, and laughing at myself because no matter how long or how short, how simple or how involved the writing is, I always end up with the same basic and simple conclusion: that, to me, God is LOVE.

This great universe around us is awe-inspiring and difficult to understand, and some think of this as God, but to me God is not some grand universal power out there. God is much more personal to me. God is the love within each of us: love of ourselves, love of those close to us, love of all people in the world, love of animals and love of nature. As we have real genuine love within us, we have God within us and with this feeling of love comes a peace within and this gives us the strength and will, the faith and hope, to cope with the everyday problems all of us have as we struggle to live in today's difficult world.

Our strength comes from within ourselves, but only if we have the love within us to make it possible. I am not always strong and I don't always cope successfully, but I do have an inner peace. I'm not always as full of love as I need to be, and I have to renew my love and remind myself that I can't change others but I can change myself. My son gave me a real compliment in a note he wrote to me on Mother's Day. I read it with humility but also pride. He said, "Your belief in God seems so integrated into your life that you model it instead of preaching it. In so many ways you have continued to grow." This makes me feel that perhaps I have reached my goal.

I feel that this inner love we have is the answer to our personal problems and the problems of the world, and that this can become a power greater than all of us if we will let it be a part of our whole being and our way of life. I know this sounds very idealistic, but after living all these years I still have great hope and faith. This is what GOD is all about.
 

Flo Reaves,  March 1992

WHEN ASKED what I believe, I tend to list first the traditional dogmas that I do not believe. And when asked again to state what I do believe, I tend to scratch my head and say, "What do I believe? Nothing!" or "Gee, I really don't know." However, when I go beyond this, I do come up with some tentative beliefs.

I believe in sunshine and moonlight, clouds, storms, rainbows and stars; the wonder, beauty, power, indifference and sensitivity of all of nature and the cosmos. I believe that we must strive to nurture and protect the natural world, to cherish it so that it will continue to nurture, protect and cherish our bodies and spirits. This includes all sorts of things, from helping people in whatever way each of us can to recycling, reducing toxic wastes, planting trees, reducing energy consumption, and so forth. Every little bit helps.

I believe in life and I believe in the inevitability of death. I believe in wonder and irony. I believe that we can learn from experience and that we can change. I believe that sometimes we need to take risks and that we can grow from taking these risks, whatever the outcome.

I believe that there is solicited and unsolicited good and bad in life, and that life has many ambiguities. But while I am alive, I believe I have a responsibility, an obligation to use my potentials: to use my brains, musical ability, teaching skills, and whatever else positive that I am, sharing with and passing on to others directly or indirectly whatever has been given to me. I also believe that being human, I will often fail to live up to my potential. This I accept (usually), for I believe that the process of continually striving to live fully, helping and accepting help, interacting with others and nature, is the essence of life. What is death but the cessation of this continuing process?

I believe in the arts: literature, music, painting. sculpture, and all the rest, professional and amateur, trained and untutored, as a vehicle for expanding our souls and spirits, for enriching our existence and sharing our humanity. If we can understand, or even just get a glimpse of understanding the arts of other cultures, we can come closer to accepting and communicating with the people of other cultures. I believe in tolerance and the need for me, in particular, to strive continually to be more tolerant of others.

In fact, it seems that there are a number of things that I believe in. Maybe it is the open-endedness of my beliefs and some buit-in ambiguities that often leaves me saying, "Gee, I really don't know what I believe in." And last of all, I believe that there is a heck of a lot that I don't know and that I will never have a "finished" statements of beliefs.
 

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