TOP DOG PRESS

Credo

by Skian McGuire

I believe in the worthiness of desire and the inevitability of grief.

I believe that anger and fear can sometimes keep me safe, as sometimes hope can blind me.

I believe that courage is not the absence of fear but its defiance. It's the virtue that makes all other virtues possible. But even so, its virtue hardly matters when the only other choice is death.

I believe that every virtue is also a fault. Every curse is also a blessing, and vice versa.

I believe only in what I smell and touch, except when I believe in things I can't see. I believe that meaning is what we make, like the constellations of stars. I believe in the souls of animals.

I believe in the bright blessed day and the dark sacred night. I believe that prayer is both futile and indispensable.

I believe we are all tools, all made to some purpose which we can only discover by discerning what we are good for. In the end, tenacity may be the only talent that matters.

I believe there is no such thing as God. I believe that God is everywhere and everything, God is the earth and the sky, the air we breathe and the lungs we breathe with, God is the blood cells that carry oxygen and the oxygen molecules, the protons and electrons and the empty space between the electrons. God is everything we can know and see and touch, and everything we can't. God is everything that doesn't exist. God is everything that is not myself, and everything that is.

I believe that if something is worth doing well, it is even more worth doing badly.

I believe that no blessing is truly deserved, and neither is any punishment.

I believe in the power of communion in all forms, and the necessity of communion in some form - without some other, human or animal, I am not whole, and I can't be truly myself. I need the mirror of another being to see that which is God in myself, and even when I stand outside the circle of light, I am looking in, not out.

I believe in love, and healing, even when I'm afraid to hope for them. I believe in them even when I can't admit it.

I believe in the power of Story not just to tell us who we are but to make us into who we will become. I believe in the magic of words.

	

 

Ó Skian McGuire 2003