The Slow Way: Meaning and the Stories That Shape Us
How we make meaning is how we live. And the gift of the spiritual life is that it teaches us to make meaning, to find our story in a bigger story.
It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year in my family. The last week of school, my husband’s birthday, our anniversary, and then August’s birthday. This is almost always followed by the week we spend in Maine every summer.
Did I mention I love the last day of school? It’s a holiday up there with all the big ones. I love it for its effervescent delight and relief. I love it because no one puts themselves together for the last day of school. Every participant in the last day of school is dragging themselves there. I love taking pictures of my boys on the first and last day every year—both for the typical mom reasons of seeing how they grew and changed, and also for the chance to witness the clean cut, cute outfits in September versus the rumpled-just-out-of-bed, I-need-to-sleep-for-two-months look of the last day. It’s just so human.
Every last day of school when I was a kid, my dad would leave work early, pick me up, and take me out for a banana split—which we’d share. That feeling—being special enough to receive his time on a work day, being the only kid he took (my brothers were older and doing their own thing), and getting to order the most expensive ice cream treat on the menu? It was my favorite day of the year.
With all the wildness of this week, Father’s Day always surprises me. We celebrate my husband Chris’s birthday just a couple of days before, so I’m always fumbling to come up with a plan. And then there’s the fact that my own dad is gone. Whether it’s good or bad, here’s my truth: Because I’m not sending my dad anything, it’s hard to remember that Fathers Day still exists for everyone else.
I shared the story of my tree “Little Mikey” this week on Instagram, my weeping redbud that I planted on my dad’s birthday, four months after he died. The tree is now two years old, sweet and vibrant, and has a happy and healthy bundle of leaves drooping down on a skinny trunk. (My dad had skinny legs too, so it all makes sense.)
I’ve been thinking this week about how we make meaning. We humans are people of ritual. We mark seasons and days, and we tie them to our relationships. The last day of school, the birthdays, the transformation of our environment from winter to spring to the aching heat of summer and all the ways we turn that heat into fun—the pool, the ice cream, the nights eating outside, the way sunscreen and bug spray smells like childhood. The way my growing little tree reminds me of the time it’s been since my dad was here.
How we make meaning is how we live. And the gift of the spiritual life is that it teaches us to make meaning, to find our story in a bigger story.
I’m still reading Richard Rohr’s book Things Hidden, and have spent this past week—in addition to wrapping presents, baking cake, and decorating the house in rainbow bunting—thinking about Rohr’s idea of the Cosmic Egg. This is one of the most profound and simple ways I’ve found of thinking about how we humans see the world, and what we need to carry a healthy sense of God’s work in the universe.
Let me break it down:
Rohr illustrates the Cosmic Egg through three half-ovals, or three “domes of meaning.” A small dome in the center of the egg, another on the outside of that center, and the biggest dome outside of those. Here’s a picture that might help you visualize this.
The first “dome of meaning” is called “My Story”: This is the way we make meaning of our individual, personal lives. This is me telling you that the last day of school, banana splits with my dad, and Father’s Day create a particular sort of ache for me. This is the part of us that our culture thinks about in terms of “subjective, interpersonal, self-help, psychological language.” When we stop here in thinking about meaning, only in the realm of our own private experience of the world, we lean toward shallowness, toward smallness that cuts out any sense of greater purpose or compassion for the world.
The second dome of meaning is called “Our Story”: This is the framework where we find ourselves in a group, and where most of human history has been lived. We divide ourselves by gender, ethnicity, religion, occupation, tribe. This is Groupthink, where wars are fought, and where walls are built, where political parties divide, where violence simmers. As Rohr points out, this level of the Cosmic Egg is where ideologues are made, where we replace “real experience with predetermined conclusions.”
And then there’s the third dome of meaning. It’s called “The Story,” which Rohr defines as being “what is always true.” The work of the Divine in the midst of all our stories. As St. Augustine said, “all truth is God’s truth.” And this is the space where we don’t have be afraid of what is true. Truth will guide us into wholeness and knowledge and compassion, whether or not we can make it fit neatly within our group’s definitions of truth. When we stretch our thinking and experiences into The Story, the other domes are held steady and given meaning that leads to life, not violence and division.
As Rohr says, “The biblical tradition takes all three levels seriously.” If we try to jump to the third level “without doing the painful, personal work of my story and the social, historical and critical work of our story,” we fall into the “superficial and un-self-critical” trap of fundamentalism. And when we exist only in “my story,” we exist in naval gazing, ego-centered views of the world.
So what does this mean for us?
I think this is the always-work of the spiritual life. My story must always exist under the two other domes. And so must yours, if we’re to be whole and healthy in our beliefs. The gift of faith is that we are invited into The Story, a story much bigger than my experience of Father’s Day, or my feelings about my kids growing up. It’s also bigger than the groups I used to belong to that I still grieve for—the feeling of being “in” with the conservative Christianity of my past. Or the temptation to live as a white, straight, educated, upper middle class, cisgendered woman on the east coast, who can easily ignore the reality of racism, classism, homophobia, and ableism that daily affects people who belong to very different groups than I do.
The Story is our invitation to the Dream of God—to live something bigger, to step outside of small views of the world (based only on how the world works for us), and to open ourselves to what is True in the world. To begin to imagine how each of us have a personal story and a group story that, when centered in the middle of The Story equips us for a particular way of living toward Beloved Community. An invitation to live integrated and whole.
A Slow Practice
Let’s move toward integration today. It’s your turn to consider what the Cosmic Egg looks like for you.
Breathe in slowly with me. Then breathe out slowly. Do this a few times, adding in a prayer with your breath:
Breathe in: Spirit, I am here with you.
Breathe out: Guide my thinking.
Now sit in the quiet for a bit, committing to three questions in your prayer. Spend around five minutes with each question.
Begin with: What is “my story”? Obviously, you could write books about your story. But in this practice, you’re invited to simply consider your story at the high levels: your childhood, your moments that shaped you, the big choices you’ve made, the great sufferings and joys of your life.
After five minutes of prayerfully considering your personal story, move on to, What is “our story”? What groups have you been part of in your life? How have those groups shaped your thinking about the world? What groups have you left? What groups have you joined? What kind of pain, joy, meaning do you carry with you because of your groups?
After five minutes with this reflection, move on to the final question: What is “The Story”? What is true about the world, the universe, the Divine? Where do you find your own story in this truth? What true thing do you avoid because it makes the smaller domes of your life feel wobbly or uncertain? What would leaning into those truths do to your sense of your groups’ stories, and your personal story?
End this time with a commitment to discernment, to continue to look at your life through these domes, to ask Holy Spirit for guidance to know your place in the The Story.
End with the same breath prayer you began with:
Breathe in: Spirit, I am here with you.
Breathe out: Guide my thinking.
A List of Things:
The Slow Way Podcast is about to celebrate its 100th episode! Do you want to help me celebrate? I’m looking for stories from YOU about what The Slow Way means to you. Here’s how to help! Record a video or voice memo of you sharing one or more of the following:
Where do you listen to The Slow Way?
How do you use the Slow Practices?
How has The Slow Way mattered in your life?
Send your voice memos to michaboyett@gmail.com BY THIS TUESDAY JUNE 18 and you may be included in my 100th episode!
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