This I Believe

• I believe in a creative life force, a spirit or spirits, the Tao or Great Mother, God or gods - something that binds all life together.
• I believe this energy or force binds us with those who came before and those who are here now.
• I believe in a wisdom tradition where select individuals are capable of accessing our collective memory and retrieving the great truths.  I believe these individuals have a responsibility to communicate them to the rest of us.
• I believe that messages necessary for survival are hard-wired into our genes and have been passed down since life began.
• I believe evidence for the hardwiring can be found in butterflies, turtles, whales, and penguins - species who know how to take care of themselves from the moment they are born - who migrate because they know they have to, even if they don't know why - who know to head down the sandy beach as soon as they are hatched, or head upstream, regardless of the fact that its more difficult.
• I believe that natural disasters and human tragedies are an inevitable part of life - that scientific conditions or random events create conditions under which tragedies arise or develop.  Any meaning to be derived from these events is a function of our human nature -  trying to understand why.
• Natural disasters and even smaller human tragedies allow for the emergence of hero figures - natural leaders - who find the power to change the way things are, and make them better.
• I believe in the power of science and scientific inquiry which provides us with greater understanding of life and the world around us.  I believe in the Big Bang and evolution.
• I believe in the power of art, and the storytelling tradition, which allows the great truths to be communicated again and again.
• I believe in the power of language and also the power of listening.
• I believe in wonder and awe and miracles and that there are things that never will be explained, no matter how hard we try and how much we come to know.
• I believe art originated before language and that prehistoric man used art to communicate before he began naming things.  I also believe that we will never know this for sure.
• I believe I will survive cancer, but if I don't, that I will stay alive in the hearts and minds of those whom I've loved and those who have loved me.
• I believe my life, as unremarkable as it has been, has had meaning - and that my death will also have meaning - that I will be able to watch over my loved ones, and that they will know this.
• I believe in the wisdom of Lao-Tzu that "if you aren't afraid of dying, there is nothing you can't achieve."
• I believe in the wisdom of William Faulkner that "memory believes before knowing remembers."
• I believe in living each day as if it were a bonus.
• I believe I will survive cancer.

This I believe.