Good Morning, Digital Neighbors! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Welcome back to Monday—a real Monday that feels like Monday, not a fourth Saturday or “what Sunday is this???” Twelve drummers drumming supposedly points to the articles of the Apostles’ Creed, but that is of course not agreed upon by everyone. I guess I prefer the catechetical links interpretation because being a person of faith is a twofold venture: the relationship you have with God and your ability to articulate what and why you believe. Many Catholics have joined the ranks of the inactive or been poached because they could not articulate their faith in any manner, and so it begged the question: “Then why do you believe?”

I am not a fan of poachers. One of our neighboring churches up the road, when I was in New Melle, had sessions called “Recovering from Catholicism.” I always wanted to drop in on that session, but I thought it would just be a dick move in response to their dick initiative. I often thought, what if we were to hold: “There is more to faith than emotional worship-tainment”? There is nothing positive to be gained by mutual dickery among Disciples of Christ, but we sure do engage in it often. The corrosive secular world and the militant Islamic world should give us pause to cooperate rather than compete.

Creeds in their simplest form help you articulate and agree—something human beings do not often come by easily. Creeds are not a replacement for a prayerful relationship with God, nor are they the same as living out the faith you profess, but they are a statement of belief and consent to revealed truths. This is what we (however large or small the group is) profess and live by. Everyone has a creed of some sort, articulated or unarticulated. Many live by creeds completely unexamined as they go about their unreflective and impulsive day-to-day living.

Watch how they live, listen to how they talk, spend enough time with them, and their creed will become more evident. You probably won’t get a 100% fix on it, but you will get a foothold on what matters to them, and that is their personal creed. Again, none of us can mind-read, but we can observe behavior, pay attention to words and patterns of speech, and that is more revealing than most speakers realize. Perhaps the odd saving grace is that, while so many go about being unreflective, they are met by an equal number of inattentive observers who pay them no heed.

That you are reading this gives me hope in the ever-growing number of attentive and reflective people who are out there. Not to pat ourselves on the back—it is too easy to slip into automated living and become a cog—but at least we are trying to be more engaged and aware. Creeds involve some sort of intentional living, and intentional living is the best beginning to meaningful living. Have a great day drumming your path into 2026!

Thou takest the pen—and the lines dance.
Thou takest the flute—and the notes shimmer.
Thou takest the brush—and the colours sing.
So all things have meaning and beauty
in that space beyond time where Thou art.
How, then, can I hold back anything from Thee?

DAG HAMMARSKJÖLD, 1905–61, MARKINGS

Winter Road- Javid Naderi - Unsplash