I always hesitate when someone, especially a 'Christian' asks me what I believe in.

 

If they were asking me to share the 'Song of Joy" that is my experience of God, so that they can benefit from it, or at least know God better, then I would happily share, but generally, people who ask this question seem to want to run what I say through their personal orthodoxy test to decide whether my experience of God is valid.  This isn't really something that i am interested in doing.  Mainly because what I know of God, (which is almost nothing), is only known to me through my experience.  How do you share that with someone who has an orthodoxy test.

 

For anyone who is still reading, here is what comes to mind right now when I ask myself this question:

 

- I experience God as loving energy.  Sometimes, I experience this through a heart to heart sharing with another person, at other times through the beauty or terror of nature, or through my sense of my own inner energy.

 

- Based on my experience of God as energy I feel comfortable in saying that I believe in God.

 

- Many of the things that I have learned in my journey, through the Catholic church, through other christian churches, through buddhist teachings, and through political and social activism ring true to me and seem worthy of encouragement, support, activism, belief, whatever.

 

- Because my life experience has mainly been through the Catholic church, I feel comfortable with lots of Catholic teaching, Catholic worship, but there are also many things about the Catholic church that I don't like.  Enough that I don't really feel comfortable calling myself Catholic.  For the same reason, I don't really feel comfortable with any other 'religious' label either.

 

- I believe in the holiness of human life.  I do not agree with abortion and believe that in general abortion is wrong.  I can see that the world is not perfect and there is often a need to choose the lesser evil.  I don't have any magic solution to how to choose the lesser evil, and question the honesty of anyone who claims that they do know how to always choose the lesser evil. I believe that science is a gift from God, and that we should enjoy the benefits of science, but one of the things that science, (or rather mankind in general) tries to do, is to avoid necessary pain.  By making the avoidance of pain a priority, as society does, we create technologies that dehumanise us.  Examples of this include using stem cells inappropriately and research into cloning.  Avoiding the pain of gluttony, or depression with medication are other examples.

 

This is a rambling more than anything, and is not really intended as a "Creed", rather as a 'consciousness stream' triggered by the question "what do I believe?"