Credo: I Believe

If everyone could read Latin, it would not be necessary to translate the Latin word, credo.  I could give you a hint and use an English word that comes from that Latin credo.  It would be our word, creed.  “Ah,” you would say, “a creed is something someone believes…or something a whole group believes.”  “Correct,” I say.

I am at that bi-annual time that I love and don’t like at the same time.  It is the end of another semester.  I love reading the final papers submitted by students in my classes.  Of course, there seems to be too many papers and, of course, I ask for papers that are fairly long.  So it is a great deal of work…and I don’t like that.  But it is a blast to see what the students have learned, to see the place to which they have come, to appreciate the growth they have experienced.

Every time I begin to read a student paper---or a new book, for that matter---I recall my younger daughter’s approach.  When she began to read, she always would see what the first sentence said.  And then she would flip to the last page and read the final sentence.  I guess she figured if the author did not know how to begin and end the paper/book, she would not bother.  So I thought I would test that approach with my papers as they now are drifting into my mailbox.

Randomly, I picked up one young woman’s credo.  This gal started rather boldly.  She said, “I believe God is real.”  Even if I disagreed with her theology, I admire the bold, sure way she puts a stake in the ground.  She tells us a couple things.  Not only does she have some idea of God, but she believes God is real.  No qualifiers here for her.  She does not say, “I think there is a God.”  With that kind of clarity, I am confident that she can go on and tell me something about who God is for her and, perhaps, how she experiences that God at work in the world.

As I thumb through other papers, I hit one that made me laugh.  Again a young woman opens her paper with these words.  “My favorite spiritual guide, Mr. Rogers, said, “Who we are in the present includes who we were in the past.”  I want to put an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence, but she just has a period!

I could not resist.  I followed my daughter’s approach and turned to the last sentence of the “Mr. Rogers’ paper.”  I was not disappointed.  That same writer finishes the paper by saying, “I hope my spirituality that has been building is only the beginning of a spark and soon, the whole world will be ablaze.”  Again unfortunately, no exclamation mark!

I don’t really need to get into more papers (although obviously I will).  You get the point.  Routinely I am taught by my students.  I am their disciple, but they would be startled by that way of putting it.  But again, when I read the New Testament in Greek, I know every time Jesus calls someone to be a disciple, he is merely using the word for student.

Let’s summarize what my students have taught us.  God is real.  Who we are today includes who we were all the yesterdays of our life.  And finally in my own words, we should be so sparked by God’s Spirit that we become the combustible agents of spreading the fire of Divine Love across the globe.

I smile approvingly.  I am not happy because I have figured out how to coerce the students to believe what I believe.  Their credo is not to mimic mine.  Their credo is to articulate what they believe---how they will make meaning in their lives.

To set the world on fire is a noble goal…especially when it is the fire of God’s love.  Let’s join them.