MY PERSONAL CREED

MY PERSONAL CREED

God is.1

Because God is, I am. I am experiencing God.2  I am experiencing Her in the love in which I am forgiven and in which I forgive. I am experiencing Him in the light in which I am seen and in which I see. I am experiencing Her in the truth in which I am known and in which I know.  God creates me in his image; male and female creates she them.3 God is spirit.  God is:  love/loving, light/lighting, and truth/truthing.4 Therefore, at my essential core, I too am spirit. I am love, light, and truth.

God gives me the gift of free will. Through it I accept God’s Love for me. “For God so loved the world, that he sent his only Son, that whoever has faith in him and does the will of God should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16 Reworded)  (Also see:  John 7:16-17 ESVUK)5

As Christ is one with God, I am one with Christ.6  I—as the “Christ within”—am experiencing a multitude of “me’s”.  Each day I am comforting and caring for myself by noticing and nurturing with curiosity, gratitude, compassion, patience, and humor both the internal and external “guests” that are visiting me.  I am at peace.  I am taking responsibility for my life and calling forth by ability to respond in a new way without guilt or judgment.  I am being transformed now. I am forgiving myself and others who appear to have harmed me—releasing all blame and attachment to negative energies that are not for not for my highest and greatest good. I am free. I am shedding and releasing all limiting beliefs. I am clear.

I am joyfully and enthusiastically traveling and exploring around the world—around the universe—with my wife and friends. I am having a blast experiencing the different time periods of a variety of locations. With a sense of curiosity and wonder, I am meeting and making new friends and experiencing new things at all times and in all places. I am attending contemplative remembrance retreats each year. I am healthy and strong. My temporal body weighs 189 pounds.  I am happy and grateful. I am being blessed abundantly. I am blessed by gratefully accepting the talents of others and by humbling sharing my talents.

 

When I choose and act in love, I create as God creates. I am added unto. My unique isness, my beingness, my spiritual essence increases. I become more substantial—more real. To choose and act in love is to do things from the heart. It is awakened doing. “The three modalities of awakened doing are: acceptance, enjoyment, and enthusiasm. Each one represents a certain vibrational frequency of consciousness.” (A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, p. 295)

“Consciousness is the one and only reality—in evolution, in expansion.” (The Unobstructed Universe) Consciousness operates in and through the three co-existent essences of: receptivity, or presence of love; frequency, or beingness of light; and conductivity, or potentiality of truth. These three co-existent essences are manifesting and experienced here on this obstructed earth as: time, motion, and space.

“These three are co-existents of consciousness, but only co-existents. . . Consciousness is the reality. . . It is. It is the power, the impetus, the thing that is, the Being. The co-existents of consciousness are what consciousness operates in. Consciousness is in motion; all the time. They—the trilogy—are not attributes, but various juxtapositions of them make various kinds of attributes.” (The Unobstructed Universe by Stewart Edward White, pp. 170-171)

God is Supreme All-Consciousness. (The Unobstructed Universe & Anchors to Windward by Stewart Edward White) I am experiencing God operating in and through the three co-existents aspects of the Trinity, i.e., God the Father, or presence of love; God the Son, or beingness of light; and God the Holy Spirit, or potentiality of truth. The Trinity is One Eternal God. As was said in ancient times, we too are bold to say: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD.” (Deuteronomy 6:4 KJV) God, the Eternal One, operates in and through the three co-existent essences of love/loving, light/lighting, and truth/truthing.

God the Father, or presence of love, is the “unmanifest source,” or Presence, of limitless abundance. God is love/loving. (1 John 4:8b KJV) God the Son, or beingness of light, is a “bodily manifestation”7 of God the Father in a specific form according to the form's individual frequency, or impetus of being. God is light/lighting and in him is no darkness/darkening at all. (1 John 1:5b KJV) God the Holy Spirit, or potentiality of truth, is the “channel of conductivity” by and through which the “unmanifest” Father—or Source—is made manifest and by and through which the "manifest" Son returns glory to the Father.8  God is Spirit; (John 4:24a KJV) God the Spirit is truth/truthing. (1 John 5:6b KJV)

“[E]very experience which is a manner of action by free will, however slight, is drawn from that part of the cosmos which comprises the Not-done, and transferred into that part of the cosmos which comprises the Thing-done. The latter is, in the realest sense possible, a portion of the individual entity, and will forever remain so.” (With Folded Wings, p. 33) “[W]hatever is done, whether in the physical world, in human relations, in the substance of thought, or spiritual contact—whatever is done with love endures. All else is consumed in the eventual transformation. . . ‘[T]hings done heartily’—these alone have a complete and ultimate influence in the accretion and the fashioning of the spirit entity.” (With Folded Wings, p. 50) “The course of personal development, then, is a constant transferal from that which is outside in experience, permanently to that which is—not inside, but ourselves." (With Folded Wings, p. 33) In religious terms, this process of spiritual growth and development is called becoming a son of God.9 In psychological terms, it is called individuation.

I am a person with a unique frequency who is becoming a son of God. In the Christian tradition, God the Son is uniquely expressed and experienced in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. “For in [the Son of God] all the fulness of God [is] pleased to dwell.” (See: Colossians 1:19 RSV) “And from the [Son of God’s] fullness have we all received, grace upon grace.” (See: John 1:16 RSV) In and through the grace of God, we are all evolving. “[I]t doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.  (1 John 3:2b KJV)

The “body of Christ”—of which I am a member in particular10—is “[f]or the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:” (Ephesians 4:12-15 KJV)

And thus secure in the experience of being loved, I, in turn, am learning to love as I am loved.11 Through choosing to surrender my will12 and to accept God’s love13 as he wills it for me in this present moment14, I am being transformed and becoming Christ-like.

"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:  and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20 KJV)

In the name of the living and true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—One God, our Mother—our Source. Amen.

Endnotes

1

●We say "God is," and then we cease to speak, for in that knowledge words are meaningless. There are no lips to speak them, and no part of mind sufficiently distinct to feel that it is now aware of something not itself.

(ACIM: W-pI.169.5:1-5)

●“When we speak of God, we know we are wrong, but we must speak of God.”

(Fr. Rae Wake, quoting Meister Eckhart)

●“In unknowing knowing we know God, . . . .”

(Meister Eckhart)

●“So much depends on our idea of God! Yet no idea of Him, however pure and perfect, is adequate to express Him as He really is. Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about Him.”

(New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton, p. 17)

2

●. . .

Here is God's purpose -

for God to me, it seems,

is a verb

not a noun,

proper or improper;

is the articulation

not the art, objective or subjective;

is loving,

not the abstraction "love" commanded or entreated;

is knowledge dynamic,

not legislative code,

not proclamation law,

not academic dogma, nor ecclesiastic canon.

Yes, God is a verb,

the most active,

connoting the vast harmonic

reordering of the universe

from unleashed chaos of energy.

And there is born unheralded

a great natural peace,

not out of exclusive

pseudo-static security

but out of including, refining, dynamic balancing.

Naught is lost.

Only the false and nonexistent are dispelled.

(An excerpt from Buckminster Fuller’s No More Secondhand God and Other Writings)

3

●So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female created he them. (Genesis 1:27 KJV)

4

●God is spirit, (John 4:24a KJV)

●for God is love. (1 John 4:8b KJV)

●God is light (1 John 1:5b KJV)

●the Spirit is the truth. (1 John 5:6b KJV)

5
^{●16 So Jesus answered them, "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.  17 If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority.  (John 7:16-17 ESVUK)}

6

●11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. . . .  That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.  And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:  I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.  (John 17:11, 21-23 KJV)

7

●For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:9 KJV)

8

●And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:11 KJV)

9

●But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13 KJV)

10

●Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. (1 Corinthians 12:27 KJV)

11

●Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No man has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his own Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we know and believe the love God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. In this is love perfected with us, that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because he first loved us. If any one says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should love his brother also. (1 John 4:7-21 KJV)

12

●I am going to preach a hard doctrine to you now. The submission of one's will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God's altar. It is a hard doctrine, but it is true. The many other things we give to God, however nice that may be of us, are actually things He has already given us, and He has loaned them to us. But when we begin to submit ourselves by letting our wills be swallowed up in God's will, then we are really giving something to Him. And that hard doctrine lies at the center of discipleship. There is a part of us that is ultimately sovereign, the mind and heart, where we really do decide which way to go and what to do. And when we submit to His will, then we've really given Him the one thing He asks of us. And the other things are not very, very important. It is the only possession we have that we can give, and there is no resulting shortage in our agency as a result. Instead, what we see is a flowering of our talents and more and more surges of joy. Submission to Him is the only form of submission that is completely safe.

(An excerpt from Neal A. Maxwell’s speech Sharing Insights from My Life given at Brigham Young University on January 12, 1999)

13

●The beginning of the fight against hatred, the basic Christian answer to hatred is not the commandment to love, but what must necessarily come before in order to make the commandment bearable and comprehensible. It is a prior commandment, to believe. The root of Christian love is not the will to love, but the faith that one is loved. The faith that one is loved by God. That faith that one is loved by God although unworthy—or, rather, irrespective of one's worth!

In the true Christian vision of God's love, the idea of worthiness loses its significance. Revelation of the mercy of God makes the whole problem of worthiness something almost laughable: the discovery that worthiness is of no special consequence (since no one could ever, by himself, be strictly worthy to be loved with such a love) is a true liberation of the spirit. And until this discovery is made, until this liberation has been brought about by the divine mercy, man is imprisoned in hate.

(New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton, pp. 76-77)

14

● THE LOVE OF GOD

By Thomas Merton (arranged in stanzas and poetry form by Keith Jensen)

For it is God’s love that warms me in the sun

And God’s love that sends the cold rain.

It is God’s love that feeds me in the bread I eat

And God that feeds me also by hunger and fasting.

It is the love of God that sends the winter days

When I am cold and sick,

And the hot summer when I labor

And my clothes are full of sweat:

But it is God Who breathes on me

With light winds off the river

And in the breezes out of the wood.

His love spreads the shade of the sycamore over my head

And sends the water-boy along the edge of the wheat field

With a bucket from the spring,

While the laborers are resting and the mules stand under the tree.

It is God’s love that speaks to me in the birds and streams;

But also behind the clamor of the city

God speaks to me in His judgments,

And all these things are seeds sent to me from His will.

If these seeds would take root in my liberty,

And if His will would grow from my freedom,

I would become the love that He is,

And my harvest would be His glory and my own joy.

And I would grow together

With thousands and millions of other freedoms

Into the gold of one huge field praising God,

Loaded with increase, loaded with wheat.

If in all things I consider only the heat and the cold,

The food or the hunger, the sickness or labor,

The beauty or pleasure, the success and failure

Or the material good or evil my works have won for my own will,

I will find only emptiness and not happiness.

I shall not be fed, I shall not be full.

For my food is the will of Him Who made me

And Who made all things in order to give Himself to me through them.

My chief care should not be to find pleasure or success,

Health or life or money or rest or even things like virtue and wisdom—

Still less their opposites, pain, failure, sickness, death.

But in all that happens, my one desire and my one joy should be to know:

“Here is the thing that God has willed for me.

In this His love is found,

And in accepting this I can give back His love to Him

And give myself with it to Him.

For in giving myself I shall find Him

And He is life everlasting.”

By consenting to His will with joy and doing it with gladness

I have His love in my heart,

Because my will is now the same as His love

And I am on the way to becoming what He is,

Who is love.

And by accepting all things from Him

I receive His joy into my soul,

Not because things are what they are

But because God is Who He is,

And His love has willed my joy in them all.

(New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton, pp. 16-18)