{"id":19754,"date":"2021-01-26T10:22:03","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T15:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19754"},"modified":"2021-01-26T10:22:03","modified_gmt":"2021-01-26T15:22:03","slug":"our-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=19754","title":{"rendered":"\u201cOur Story\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/GsbFFPWnBIs\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The larger realm of meaning beyond My Story is Our Story. To continue the model of the three domes, this is the dome of our group, community, church, nationality, gender, and ethnicity. (<a href=\"https:\/\/email.cac.org\/t\/d-l-cuktjit-tlkriywur-r\/\">View the three domes of The Cosmic Egg on our website here<\/a>).We seem to need this for our own identity and security as social beings. It is both good and necessary, but if we try to make it the whole enchilada, we end up with the culture and identity wars we have today. Most of us have to work through multiple memberships: family, neighborhood, religious affiliation, gender, country. These communities are schools for relationship, connection, and almost all virtue as we know it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Everyone has access to this level of meaning, consciously or unconsciously, negatively or positively. We are essentially social beings and we live inside of some shared meanings, which become our reference points and our runway. Our Story is the necessary training ground for belonging, attaching, trusting, and loving. If we are raised in a healthy family system, we generally feel positive about our group possibilities, including our religious and cultural rituals and traditions. Unfortunately, some people get stuck here and spend their lives defending the boundaries and glory of \u201ctheir\u201d group. They make plans for war, and perfect the scapegoating of others. Such group egocentricity is more dangerous than personal egocentricity. It looks like greatness when it is often no more than very well-disguised narcissism. I don\u2019t have much self-knowledge, so I throw all of my cache into being Italian! I live on the surface of my own soul, but I sure play good football. I have no deep identity, so I live through my husband or wife or children or friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>People try to find identity in a group, an institutional affiliation, a nation, a public cause\u2014or today, like never before, public fame or infamy. Somehow, to be on the news or in social media is to be immortalized. People feel protected inside of the group identity or public fame. We all connect with one group or another\u2014a Catholic, a Harley-Davidson owner, a Chicago Cubs fan\u2014and then we sport proud signs about it. Such group symbols, flags, and patriotism remind us that we are not alone; and such shared meaning gives consolation and security to the small self\u2014and something to talk about! The handy language of \u201cus\u201d versus \u201cthem\u201d lifts some real burden from our private striving, and there is true comfort in being among our own. In fact, Our Story feels so sacred that most&nbsp;<em>religion works at this level as a belonging system more than a search for intimacy with God.&nbsp;<\/em>The second dome becomes an avoidance of the third and most all-inclusive (<em>The Story)<\/em>. I see this in many seminarians, young priests, and bishops, after having given them retreats for many years. They put all their eggs in the Roman Catholic basket, but they have little curiosity about their own shadow or inner life. Their goal is not really love of God, but the love of \u201cmy priesthood\u201d as it is often strangely called.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus was not into groupthink or loyalty tests. I\u2019m convinced God could care less about them, but God also seems to know that\u00a0<em>we\u00a0<\/em>need symbols, songs, sacred times and places for communal support and encouragement. However, we will need these boundary markers less and less as we move toward the real Center. <strong>Thus, we often see a certain freedom in wise elders and people who have suffered and come through\u00a0<\/strong><em><strong>renewed<\/strong><\/em><strong>. In the second half of life, we don\u2019t need to be a hero anymore and we may not even need to belong. We just need to be\u00a0<\/strong><em><strong>real.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><strong>Saint Augustine put it most daringly, \u201cLove [God] and do what you will!\u201d [1]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"blob:http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/7e76cbfa-6981-4c1a-a5da-1fcf94600525\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"352\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-26-at-10.17.41-AM-500x352.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19756\" srcset=\"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-26-at-10.17.41-AM-500x352.png 500w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-26-at-10.17.41-AM-300x211.png 300w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-26-at-10.17.41-AM-768x541.png 768w, https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Screen-Shot-2021-01-26-at-10.17.41-AM.png 2042w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The larger realm of meaning beyond My Story is Our Story. To continue the model of the three domes, this is the dome of our group, community, church, nationality, gender, and ethnicity. (View the three domes of The Cosmic Egg on our website here).We seem to need this for our own identity and security as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19754"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19757,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19754\/revisions\/19757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}