A Credo of None
Love is God.
People are mostly good.
Life is colorful, sometimes painful,
and always worth living.
I am my own worst enemy.
I recognize Love in myself and others.
We are One Human Family.
Love is my religion.
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When I was in graduate school studying theology, the pinnacle course that everyone loved to complain about in a self-congratulatory way was Systematics. It was a year-long course that consisted of studying theologians spanning two millennia. It culminated in a massive paper that students wrote called our Credo. In this paper, we were to select loci (fancy theological term for topics) such as God, Christology, Pneumatology (Holy Spirit), Theodicy (Evil), Salvation, Hermeneutics (Bible), etc., and then write the defense of our position on said topics.
I concluded this class in the Spring of 2015 with the acute awareness that I knew how to write what was expected of me. I used big words and complex sentences, and quoted revered theologians with a clear premise and logical support based upon the premise. The problem was, I had this lurking awareness that I didn't really buy into even the premises that I stated.
Red alert! Red alert!! Danger Will Robinson!!
Please forgive my mixed-sci-fi references but writing my credo in grad school was the shifting of the plate tectonics that ultimately changed my basis for understanding reality.* I would come out as a None within several months after that paper was turned in.
Fast forward a few years when I was writing my book, I took another stab at writing a credo. A Credo of None basically wrote itself. I didn't have to read volumes of pontifications from ancient dead guys or wade through a compendium of myths, deuteronomic law, or hallucinogenic fever dreams (collectively, the Bible). It only took a few minutes of my time to write it (admittedly after a lifetime of study and seeking), not a year.
Humans overcomplicate things. And lord knows, I can be chief amongst humans in that regard. It's funny how after decades of studying all the major world religions, it's all really simple. The living out these simple truths gets difficult sometimes. Therefore, we humans tend to obfuscate simple truths with dogma, religion, and rules that distract us from living the simple truth of Love. For me, leaving religion freed me. I know others find their freedom to Love within religion. It doesn't really matter what the conduit is if the end product is indeed Love.
The Fine Print
*For those of you who are not Gen X nor into sci-fi, those quotes are from Star Trek and Lost in Space respectively.