A few months ago, at the urging
of a friend, I took a giant
leap and joined the online
networking site Facebook. I
have reconnected with a number of
friends with whom I had lost touch
and gotten to know others on a deeper
level. For my fellow parents who very
rarely have a spare moment to call a
friend or shoot them an e-mail, it has
been a nice way to reach out to a whole
group all at once.
But what I am finding most satisfying
about the whole experience is how
it is helping me to discover more about
myself. Let me explain. As anyone on
Facebook knows, the service offers a
million fun quizzes you can take to
discover things like, “What Disney
character are you?” “What kind of
mom are you?” or even “What biblical
character are you most like?” (Apparently
Ruth and I have some things in
common.)
There are also surveys you can fill out
to let people get to know you better,
such as “25 Random Things About
Me.” And while they may seem ridiculous
and a waste of time, I’ve actually
learned a little about myself in the
process. Through these self-evaluations
I have realized what image I want to—and do—project to people.
So I started thinking about what I
want people to know about me and
how they see me. Then, in the midst of
all this, I received an e-newsletter from
a local writing group that tapped into
this very issue.
Each month the newsletter provides
writing prompts to help get the creative
juices flowing for us writers. This
particular newsletter’s prompts seemed
to speak to the challenge I was facing.
The prompts—“I want to tell you...,” “I
want you to know...,” “I want to say...”
and “I want to remind you...”—were
spawned by a poem written in memory
of Esme Kenney, a 13-year-old Cincinnati
girl who was murdered in March.
The questions got me thinking: What
do I believe? What do I want my children
to know—about me, about the world,
about life? What message am I sending to
others by my life? What do I want to say?
And then it occurred to me that each
Sunday at Mass I do this when I join
the rest of the congregation in reciting
the fourth-century Nicene Creed. The
Nicene Creed is longer than the Apostles’
Creed, which according to one tradition contains contributions from
each of the 12 apostles. Creed comes
from the Latin credo, which means “I
believe.”
Whatever the history of the Apostles’
Creed, however, it recalls our most basic
beliefs as Catholics. As the Nicene
Creed says, for our sake Jesus “was crucified
under Pontius Pilate, he suffered,
died, and was buried. On the third
day he rose again in fulfillment of the
Scriptures.”
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 A Head Start
So our faith gives us a good head start
on developing our own creed in life.
But it is up to us to take it from there.
Here are some ways to help develop
your own creed:
Break it down. After reciting prayers
from memory, do we really reflect on
what we are saying? Stop and take some
time to break down the Apostles’
Creed—perhaps line by line—and
reflect on it. Seek out some articles that
help explain the creed. Think about
what you are actually saying and then
recommit yourself to those words.
Reflect. Either individually or as a
family, develop your own creed. Spend
some time thinking about who you are
and what you believe. What issues are
most important to you? Why?
Write it out. For parents and grandparents,
another idea that I got from a
friend recently is to write letters to or for
your children. My friend wrote a letter
to her son’s preschool teachers, telling
them all the things she wanted them to
know about her son that she couldn’t
include on the registration forms.
In your letter, you can express your
hopes for the child, remembrances or
observations. You might want to hold
onto the note or place it among all
their special papers/mementos, so it is
available years later, when they will
probably truly appreciate and understand
it.
Or simply write a letter telling them
what you believe, hope for them, want
them to know, etc. People sometimes
do this when they are dying or getting
older, but wouldn’t it be better to get in
the habit of doing it throughout our
lives?
Listen carefully. As you and your
family sit down and start to discuss
what things to include in your family’s
creed, listen closely to the things
that your spouse and children mention.
You might gain a lot of insight
into what matters to them, things that
wouldn’t normally come up in everyday
conversation.
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