Richard Rohr continues to explain the cosmic egg, focusing on the next two domes of meaning: other stories and the story. Read about the first two domes of meaning—my story and our story—in yesterday’s meditation.
The third dome of meaning is what I call other stories. The term “other stories” illustrates the significant but sometimes painful recognition that our story is not the only frame, not likely the most important frame, and maybe even a frame with a lot of shadow and bias. This is the great advantage of studying history, literature beyond our own language, anthropology, world cultures and religions, and experiencing some world travel, whether by opportunity or necessity. This is also the invitation modeled by Jesus to move beyond my story and our story, and to stand in friendship and solidarity with other stories.
As we encounter more and more of the world’s other stories, many people are broadening their wisdom, while others are broadening their fear. There is only one thing more dangerous than the individual ego or my story and that’s the group ego that insists that our story is the measure of all things and so seeks to label other stories as ignorant, dangerous, or inferior. It looks like it will take us some time, perhaps centuries, to resolve the human drive to exclude, to scapegoat, to judge, and to dismiss other peoples’ stories. Only nondual thinkers, mystics, and some saints seem capable of such universal capacity. [1]
The fourth dome of meaning, which encloses and regulates the three smaller ones, is called the story. By this, I mean the patterns that are always true. This is much larger and more shared than any one religion or denomination. All healthy religions would, on some levels, be telling the story, as the Roman Catholic Second Vatican Council authoritatively taught. [2] For example, forgiveness always heals; it does not matter whether we are Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, or Jewish. Forgiveness is one of the patterns that is always true, although it reveals its wisdom in countless ways. It is part of the story. Also, there is no specifically Christian way to feed the hungry or to steward the earth. Love is love, even if the motivation might be different.
The biblical tradition takes all four domes seriously: my story, our story, other stories, and the story. Biblical revelation is saying that the only way we dare move up to the story and understand it with any depth is by moving through and taking responsibility for our personal story, our group story, and other stories. We have to listen to our own experience, to our own failures, to our own sin, to our own salvation, and we’ve got to recognize that we are a part of history, of a culture, of a religious group, for good and for bad. We cannot heal or honestly examine what we do not acknowledge. [3]
References:
[1] Adapted from Richard Rohr, introduction to ONEING 9, no. 2, The Cosmic Egg (2021): 17. Available in print and PDF download.
[2] Second Vatican Council, Nostra Aetate [In Our Time], sec. 1–2.
[3] Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, rev. ed. (Franciscan Media, 2008, 2022), 20–21.
Image credit and inspiration: Priscilla Du Preez, Untitled (detail), 2020, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. With our energy and effort, we treat the stories of others as sacred and worthy of our time and attention, like our own.
Story from Our Community:
I’ve been reflecting on the 2025 Daily Meditations theme. I had an experience that I think captures a moment of shared light. In 2018, I was walking the Camino de Santiago when a priest told the congregation of pilgrims: “You are light, and you are called to be light for others.” Everyone present, Christians and non-Christians from across the globe joined together in solidarity in the little hamlet of O Cebreiro in Northeastern Spain. Many were overwhelmed to tears in this tiny church and the simple but profound message.
—Ken P.
