Creeds
Beliefs Supporting Creative Continuity
- Energy is information, experienced in awareness.
- Awareness is the opportunity for choice.
- Power is the movement of energy by choice.
- Open awareness maximizes available energy.
- The more energy available to choice, the more power.
- The more interconnected beings are,
the more energy available to them. - Divinity is complete awareness of all energy.
- Divinity is always creating, embodying surprising new life.
- To participate in divinity is to create new life, to evolve.
- Fearful control is threatened by the unexpected,
and entrenches the status quo. - Fearful control disallows some awareness,
losing vital information, lessening power. - Fearful control is isolated power, inherently self-defeating.
- The energy fearful control disallows is held in the body as tension.
- Tension is the seed of possibility:
what you hold back is your potential. - Divinity is the full potential of humanity.
12/10/97
A HUMANISTIC CREDO
- I believe in Soul, the one eternal center of awareness.
- I believe each Soul is on a recurrent sacred journey, out of the oneness, through individuality, and back to oneness with renewed wonder.
- I believe every loss and each connection is a vital moment in the individual Soul's journey out of and back to oneness.
- I believe each individual's life purpose is to support the cyclic journey of every Soul.
- I believe in the invisible, the mystery from which the life force, known as Spirit, continually emerges.
- I believe in Spirit, the energy which is information, available to the awareness of Soul.
- I believe the power of Soul is in the embodiment of Spirit by choice.
- I believe in Body, the abiding energetic structure created by Soul's choices.
- I believe in Mind, the medium between Soul and Body.
- I believe in the infinite wisdom that lives in the mystery, guides and teachers available to Mind.
- I believe in the necessity of inner silence where the wisdom from the mystery can be seen, heard, and felt.
- I believe Mind's every word is made flesh, that word thoughts and images take form in the Body.
- I believe contact between embodied Souls occurs through their exchange of Spirit.
- I believe each experience of contact is a meeting with otherness that stretches the boundaries of the individual Soul.
- I believe the challenge of otherness means letting go of limiting old ways in favor of a new, more inclusive way of being.
- I believe harmony is a sign of increasing inclusivity, the evolutionary growth of the individual Soul into communality.
- I believe the entire universe is known in the one Soul whose Spirit continually renews its Body, evolving through the epic journey of each individual Soul.
3/22/99
An Inclusive Catholic Creed
- We believe in the one God who is embodied in all that is, whose awareness and Spirit flow through all that is happening in every present moment.
- We honor this God as Mother and Father to us all, the Source of all life, the one who feeds and shelters us, and who provides whatever we truly need.
- We cherish our earth as the divine body within which we live, and move, and have our being. We respect the interdependence of all life in our glorious home.
- We recognize our God as the one who is honored by all people, whatever name they use to claim their God. Whoever you are, we believe that your God is our God too.
- We believe that every human being, and all forms of life, are a revelation of who God is, deserving honor and respect. We listen with care to each diverse embodiment of God.
- We reverence each of our bodies as the dwelling place of God, the source of experience by which we know our place in the universal body of God.
- We believe that God's creative act is ongoing, that all life forms are participants in what is coming to be. We value the contribution of all life, even when we don't understand it.
- We honor Jesus as the revelation of God, and challenge ourselves to see God’s self-disclosure in ourselves, in every other person, and indeed in every form of life.
- We believe that the God revealed in Jesus is love, the power that holds all that is just as it is. We claim that the meaning of life for each individual lies in learning how to love.
- We believe that all attempts to have power over others result from unacknowledged fear, and need to be held in love so that the healing truth may be discovered.
- We bless the poor in Spirit, those who seek no power over others, who are content to simply be aware in the present moment.
- We believe that we are challenged, in every present moment, to hold the truth in intimate relationship to each other. We honor the Spirit between us as our experience of God.
- We bless the pure in heart, those who accept the simple truth of Spirit as it presents itself within themselves, and from within each other.
- We believe the Church is the people of God, the ones who cherish equally every member, whatever their skin color, gender, age, health, or sexual orientation.
- We honor our Church leadership as the ones who listen most carefully to the ongoing revelation of God within the people. We confront their attempts to have power over us.
- We accept our share in the divine responsibility for everything that happens in our Church and our world. We are moved to act in concert with all who suffer.
- We believe that death is the way to new life, that familiar old ways need to die when they no longer hold the truth whose discovery promises exciting new life.
- We come together to celebrate the glory of the Mystery that fascinates and overwhelms us. We welcome each surprise as the gift of our God who wants to be known and loved.
March 2006
Dream Weavers Creed
- We start with a Dream of love . . .
and eventually realize the love that is a Dream worth living. - We embrace our lives as our works of divine art.
We create what we love. - We welcome transformation: we recurrently choose to die and be reborn.
- We feel the meaning of the life force as it moves through our bodies.
- We fall in love with what is . . . and Dream of what it may be.
- We are inspired to gather the creative power that is shared by all.
- We grieve our addictive illusions of control even as we surrender them.
- We release our passion for what is as yet unlived.
We bring it to birth. - We celebrate fulfillment when the Dream is happening.
We honor what has been given . . . and what we have done with it. - We allow our Dreams to be refined into the Creator’s Dream of Love.
We join together in the evolutionary work of art, making all well.
July 2010
CREATIVITY BELIEF SYSTEM
- I believe in the Creator who is always in the act of creating. Creation is not something that happened once in a long ago beginning. Creation is the new beginning in every present moment. The Creator is perpetually making all things new – and doing so in the eternal now.
- I believe that every movement of change throughout the universe is the act of the Creator. To me, Spirit is simply the purposeful energy of the Creator. The purpose is to make all things well, and then to make them better, and better. I understand evolution as the ongoing improvement of the way things are. It’s what the Creator is doing. It’s an act of love. The Dream of the Creator is an ever more complete expression of love.
- I believe in evolution having become conscious of itself. This means I get to join in on what the creative Spirit is doing. I get to be a participant in making things well, and then making them better, and better. I do this whenever I engage in creative process.
- I believe my life purpose is the part I get to play in evolution. I have a vocation to discover and be faithful to the uniqueness of my contribution. The Creator’s invitation is a promise that the best of who I am makes the world a better place. I am a living sacrament, making the divine present by joining in the activity of creation.
- I believe that when I’m on my creative path, the universe looks after me. It is not necessary to build my life around security in the future. When I give myself to the call to create, the universe conspires to support my needs. As I give myself to the Creator, all I need is given to me. This is the covenant by which the creative live.
- I believe that the creator Spirit is the Muse, is anyone, anything, anywhere, anytime – any moment of personal experience. Since the entire universe every now is the act of the Creator, my contact with whatever is happening is my connection with Spirit. I am being inspired anytime I allow myself to notice.
- I believe that creative renewal is always now. There is a risk I take when I join the Creator. Nothing new is born unless something old dies. Inspiration leads to Disillusionment. Old Dreams give way to new ones. Through every turn of the wheel, I am actively transforming myself, even as I am being transformed, even as the whole universe evolves.
- Every present moment holds the promise of something wonderful coming into being. The more I give myself to evolutionary participation, the more I discover the synchronicities confirming my participation. The more I open myself to creative process, the more energy becomes available to me. The more I surrender to the divine purpose, the more powerfully I become its embodiment.
Allan Schnarr
06/06/06