Sermon for My Students: Credo at Fifteen

This weekend, my students are busy writing credos.  A credo (from the Latin, "I believe") is a statement of beliefs, usually in the form of an anaphoric list, although my students are also writing anecdotal credos, where they have to illuminate a personal belief through story.  They tend to love this assignment and also really struggle with it.

As one student said on Friday, "Ms. Fleming, I thought you said this year was about questioning our beliefs.  How can I write a credo if I don't know what I believe?"

"But zis is ze point!"  I say and twirl my imaginary moustache.  She laughs and casts her eyes at the student sitting next to her as if to say, "I told you she's nuts."  They all think I'm crazy.

I'm not crazy.  Not really.  The Latin root "creed", or belief, also gives us the word credibility, something any writer must establish.  I want my students to build an authorial voice, a credible voice--I want them to believe what they argue and then I want them to struggle with their beliefs.   Eventually, their "questioning" voice will become their main tool of persuasion.  I hope.

But I am not without empathy.  Could I have written a credo at 15 years old?  What would I have said?  So, in solidarity with them, here I go.

Credo at Fifteen

I believe I can memorize the entire choreography of Janet Jackson's "If" video if I try a little bit harder.  I make a list of possible careers:

Back-up dancer in music videos
Movie Star
Bryce Carter's wife
Writer

I believe I will NEVER be a teacher.

I believe in Friday night lights.  I believe in the whiteness of the yard lines--not for first downs or tackles, but for they way they mark my next high kick, the way they guide our Keds into black and gold formations of girl-diamonds and girl-stars.

I believe in boys who play soccer.

I believe the "That's the Way Love Goes" video is the sexiest, most thrilling thing I've ever seen.  I'm a little frightened by how much I want to live inside that video: the plush couches, the chokers made of bone, the dreadlocks, the abstract art, the haphazard bookshelves and black-and-white photos slapped on the walls, all tiny windows into the coffee shops I'll seek out in my adulthood.  All those slow head bobs and hip rolls.

I believe it's high time I set aside my cassette tapes of Nanci Griffith and Crystal Gale, artifacts I inherited from my parents, and buy Arrested Development, Dr. Dre, En Vogue, Boyz II Men.

I believe I hate chemistry.

I believe everything my father tells me.

Therefore, I believe in Bill Clinton.

I believe my mother embarrasses me on purpose in public places.

I believe I'm fat.  I wish I had Alice's legs, Robin's boobs, anybody else's thighs, although Sir Mix-a-Lot's release of "Baby Got Back" shines down from the heavens on me like a beacon of hope from God himself.

I believe in God.

I do not believe in the God they talk about at Young Life: a weird old man in the sky who makes us sing U2 songs as hymns.

I believe in U2.

I believe in guitar solos.

I believe I have to go to Young Life to be a cool kid and so that Bryce Carter might "see" me.

I believe in Bryce Carter.  I believe very much in how he walks me to my locker after 7th period.  I believe with every part of my soul in that one time he dragged his hand across my lower back, the warmth of it seeping like water through my silk shirt, just before he left me there, my locker agape like a hungry mouth.

I believe in the smoking section of IHOP, even though I don't smoke.  The smoking section of IHOP is like the front row at Monday night Young Life, the back booths like front pews for a whole different tribe of cool kids I want to like me.

I believe in my best friend: her indelible laugh, her mother's Ay Dios Mios and Pan con Manteqilla, her loyalty.

I believe brothers should never die.  Never, ever, ever.

I believe in vocabulary words, especially the word lugubrious.

I believe Sinead O'Conner should not have torn up a photo of the pope on stage.  I feel a flush rise up my neck and cheeks every time one of the Christian boys brings this up.  I feel shame.  I go home and listen to Nothing Compares 2 U over and over again on my boom box.  I love her in secret, her bald head, her tear drop glistening on the screen.

I believe The Good Earth is the most boring thing I've ever had to read.  I believe in the stacks of true crime books on my mother's nightstand, in blood splatter and entry wounds.  I believe, still, in Harper Lee.

I believe in curling irons and L'Oreal mascara that my brother sometimes lifts from the Walgreen's for me because I don't have any of my own money and because my mom does not believe much in mascara.

I believe in wine coolers, but not very much.

I believe that every father should have made his whole family see Schindler's List on its opening night the way mine did.

I believe in Hawaiian sun tan lotion, the copper brown bottle and the greasy slime of its contents, the way it pulls the pinch of the sun down from the sky and into my skin.

I believe in kindness, although I don't always know how to form it on my lips or with my hands.

I believe in country music, especially Winona.

I believe in rap music, especially Snoop Dog.

I believe in Arby's curly fries and Frito pie.

I believe in virginity.

I believe in rosaries, in counting things out.

I believe in books: the twirl of pages under my thumb, the sweet corner crease, that spinal nook I love most to hide inside.

I believe in Whitney Houston's voice.

I believe Dylan McKay is hotter than Brandon Walsh mostly because he scowls more.

I believe that L.A. is on fire, that policemen can pull a black man out of a truck and beat him silly.

I believe my mother is so powerful I won't live up to her.

But I still believe I can be a Fly Girl.

Amen.




A little treat for you: