In April 1993, I traveled by train to a WomenChurch gathering of 3000 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Returning home to Detroit, my childhood religion was left on the tracks beside desert scrub brush and the flooded Mississippi River. Having experienced the communal power of women to embody the divine, I shed outgrown beliefs and structure like a snake discarding its skin.
Over
four years later, at the Winter Solstice, the following credo appeared
within a lengthy journal entry. Here was a winter crop ready for harvest
without conscious remembrance of its having been planted. Once tasted,
I recognized the tang of my lived truth.
I believe...in the sacred ordinariness of life.
I believe...in trying to live harmoniously with myself, others, creatures, plants, memories, the planet.
I believe...in an inexpressible multiplicity of paths to the divine.
I believe...that I do not know, nor need to know the meaning of life in general, or my own life in particular.
I believe...if I live in harmony with the flow of the Universe, I will impact this world in exactly the ways I am intended to do.
I believe...just showing up is enough, being totally present to this moment, whether in solitude or community.
I believe...there is a perfection to all that is, even that which goes against our ideas of right and good.
I believe...life is simple, so simple until we complex it up.
I believe..."doing good" does not mean going out and serving others; doing good is our natural way of being.
I believe...the
people, places and work with which we are intended to connect will come
into our lives with no effort beyond following our heart's knowing.
* This
entry can be found in Sustaining Voices, an anthology of women's
spiritual journeys, published in 1998 by WOMANSPIRIT, 867 Victoria Ave.,
Windsor, Ontario N9A4N5, Canada.
©1998 Patricia
Lay-Dorsey. Please use with attribution.