Writing our own credo — a living, organic statement of what we have come to believe — is an essential process in developing soul.

Like our forefathers who set out for America from Europe with the vision of placing the privilige of governing themselves “in the hands of the people,” I set out each day to redefine myself and my beliefs in light of my experience. The seeds of the civil rights movement, the Vatican II encounter, the Vietnam struggle of conscience, the women’s movement, have formed and fed my soul from my youth. These experiences empower me; I cannot imagine living by someone else’s perspective of truth.

The myths and sacred stories of my faith that fortified me as a child carry me still, like favorite photographs whose images I digest over and over in poetic delight. I am rooted in traditions of holy men and women whose learnings and experiences I scavage daily, trying them on for size and fit, wearing what nurtures me, discarding what does not.

The trail I leave is scattered with images and expressions upon which I feasted for years, then placed gently back down, ready for those who come after me in search of their own truth and nurturing. I prune lovingly, as I find traveling light leaves me open to new and more inclusive experiences. Often it is more a reframing or reimaging of the old rather than a complete discard of it. Different metaphors for those handed me in my childhood for truths still true.

The Tree of Good and Evil, the Tree of Knowledge, stands in my garden, shimmering. I dig gently around the roots of this tree, marveling in all past expressions of belief, all music, all poetry, all sacred effort to name the Unnamable, soaking in what nurtures, passing over in silent respect what does not. Like Moses, I seek out and determine what brings life and what brings death to me on a daily basis, with one ear aways cocked in faithful attention to an inner voice.

Writing a personal credo should only be attempted in sand. It changes often, as each new taste of the divine washes over us in waves of wonder. “This is who I am today. This I believe today.” It is the language of poetry, of music, of art, of all bold attempts to harness soul.

Credo is not church. Church is home, a comfort station, a mother. Church gives structure, a place to gather and to tell our stories of God, a community of support and shared expressions of faith, a safe haven in which children can be taught all the wisdom stories that jump-start and root their own journey of spirit. Children need structure, modeling, stories, guidance, nurturance of soul and the witness of families who live out their faith.  Leaving home and finding ones identity is not the work of children, nor should it be.

Credo is not knowledge. It is about lived experience. Knowledge is of the head, what we know to be true because it has been proven, made manageable. Credo is of the heart, of the soul, what we have come to believe because of our own journey and the shared journey of those who long to join with spirit and hear its wisdom.

Credo leaps to my lips as I take my early morning walk, when everything is still and just waking up, before I step into my cerebral world. Credo moves within me as I listen to my clients’ lives. Credo holds me close as I grieve the death of someone I love. It breathes and laughs and weeps as I do. It compels me forward and instructs me later upon reflection.

Our credo will be as rich as our pursuit of it. To put a face on God we will have to stop putting a limit on God and allow God to find us in ways we cannot now imagine, through art perhaps, or music or nature or cinema or work. We have to allow our soul to wander as restlessly as feet in search of communion with that sacred other, no matter where we find that.

We must push our questions to their limit, to the very edge of imagination — keep them fluid and interesting — and when they reach one limit, push them out farther, until they open out to more creativity and wonder. We don’t have to dump what we now believe, but to reinterpret it, expand it, freeing it up from dry, flat, automatic statements of belief that no longer fit our lived experience.

When Jesus ate with sinners or blessed the “poor in spirit,” he was recognizing those who lived on the edge of established belief, those who knew they didn’t “have it,” but were grateful for God’s meeting them where they were until they did “get it.” Be, then, always on the way. Ask  questions, pay special attention to burning bushes, don’t be afraid of “I don’t know,” and be ready at every moment to throw everything you think you know into the air and to begin anew.