MY CREDO
by Tara Umbrino
May 4, 2003
Good morning. My name is Tara Umbrino. Last September I was first faced with the question "What do I believe in?". I thought it was a simple question, but when it came time to write my credo, I learned what a hard question it truly is. There are so many things in this world that I could say I believe in, most of which are obvious and tangible. But there’s a deeper meaning to this question, that has a better answer than simply "anything I can see and touch". I knew I had the answer inside me somewhere, but it took one of my English classes for me to realize what it was. Most of the books I’ve read in my lifetime are fiction, and every tiny detail that was put into the book was created in the author’s mind. From simply telling the story to any symbolism, which was put into the book, the author had to imagine it. This is when I realized what I believe in: Imagination.
Albert Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited; imagination encircles the world" and he couldn’t have said it better. Imagination has allowed for all of the simple things in life to take place. From entertainment, to inventions, to art, it took some imagination to think of a movie plot, the structure for a chair, or the scene a painting depicts. The great thing about imagination is that once one person has imagined anything, a second can either build upon that idea, or dream another, which is completely different.
Imagination is the thing that allows us to picture God, heaven, hell, along with all of the other unknowns in our lives. The bible says that man was made in the image of God, and that image has typically been portrayed as a white male with a flowing beard. However, people are free to imagine that God is any color and can have any form. Heaven and hell have also come to be stereotypically portrayed. Heaven is generally associated with white and gold, and is a place with clouds, angels, and harps–something that one person imagined heaven to be. Hell tends to be a place in the center of the earth with fires and Satan who is red, and has horns. But there’s no proof that heaven or hell looks like that at all, or even that there is a heaven or hell. Heaven could be an idea that someone just imagined to make death seem less scary, and hell so that humans would live better lives in order to escape doom.
Whatever it is and whatever the reason, our thoughts and beliefs–caused by our imaginations–are the things that make us unique individuals. They set us apart from each other, and let us have our own set of beliefs, something which this church encourages very much: the inherit worth and dignity of every person. Imagination makes this possible and truly is the thing that I believe in most.