Jim Cogley – Reflections Tues 9 July-Mon 15 July 2024
Tuesday July 9th– Mother Relationship
We all have one, and to her we owe our very existence. Throughout life she remains that hugely influential relationship in our lives, whether she died at ninety or even at our birth, whether she be still with us or long since departed – the hand that rocked our cradle still influences our world and may well hold us back. In the womb we had no identity apart from our mother and that continued into early years and to a large extent even into our teens. This was when our selfhood or self-identity began to emerge and for this to happen successfully it demanded a going away on our side and a letting go on the part of our mother. This separating is a primary psychological task in life and for a multitude of reasons it often doesn’t happen. We may not have had the courage to go, or we may never have been given the freedom to do so.
Wednesday July 10th – Being Seen by Mother
Many of us may go through life with a sense of never being seen, or at least being seen only for what we do but not for ourselves. The roots of this tend to lie in the mother relationship and to what extent she was able to ‘see’ us. A needy mother may see the child as the answer to her needs, but not really see the child for itself. An extension of this is where she sees her child as a substitute for another child that she may have lost or even one of her own siblings. In some cases, a mother can see her child as the fulfilment of her own unrealised ambitions and wants to bask in reflected glory. Hiding behind this may even lurk jealousy of her child’s success. In some families there may be a polarisation between two daughters with one being very much the favourite and the other getting more than her share of the mother’s shadow side. Again, there is a root to this very hurtful behaviour where the split in the mother can lie in some form of abuse that is often sexual.
Thursday July 11th – The Need to be Needed
The psychologist Tony Bates relates an incident from his early life when he was far from home and going through a very rough time. His parents, concerned for his mental state, came to visit the country where he was and on one occasion he reassured his father that he was feeling so much better and well on the road to recovery. His father said that he was glad to hear it but ‘not to tell his mother as she would be disappointed’. It was partly a throw away remark that Tony heard at a different level because it revealed a truth he was just coming to terms with, that his mother had a vested interest in him remaining unwell. It is very possible that many mysterious illnesses that refuse to respond to medical intervention may well have their roots in such a mother complex and point to a serious lack of psychological separation.
Friday July 12th – Unravelling the maternal thread
Sometimes a person presents for counselling whose life from the very beginning seems and feels to them a total mess. The challenge is to know where to begin. Often there is one big issue that has created such disarray and continues to cause havoc. This can be lack of separation from mother that has deprived that individual of a sense of identity. One such male had such an enmeshed relationship that he was his mother’s whole life and she was his. He was her confidante in place of her husband who was seldom at home, but he was also so much more. This lady had been involved in an earlier relationship with a man she really loved and a resulting pregnancy had contributed to the break-up of that. The child had been adopted but became her secret that she never spoke about. It was now her son who was both a replacement for that boy, and also for her former lover whom he closely resembled. Not surprisingly this man experienced breathing problems, he was so trapped in a maternal matrix that he was suffocating.
Saturday July 13th – Vicarious Living giving rise to Enmeshment
Genuine maternal love that is unconditional and all-embracing is a real expression of divine love. It is our first experience of God’s love. Often there are unconscious factors that come into play as the relationship develops. As in the earlier reflection a child may become the substitute for another who was lost. Also, a mother with drive and ambition who was held back because of her mothering role may have ambitions for her child to fulfil her own unrealised ambitions. In being seen to promote her child she is also advancing herself. In encouraging him or her to climb the heights she has the same goal in mind. In all her children’s successes she is basking in the afterglow. Some of this is natural and healthy. A problem arises when she is living her life through her children in a manner that compromises their freedom and deprives them of their own identity. This creates enmeshment. While appearing to be a proud super mum she is keeping her children tied to her apron strings. She lives in a bubble of illusion and for others to remark how she is ruining them would come as a complete shock.
Sunday July 14th – Providence & Companionship
The Gospel of today has two words that I really love, even if they are not explicitly mentioned. They are ‘companionship’ and ‘providence’. Jesus sent out his disciples two by two as companions and he instructed them to travel light with as little baggage as possible. You would think he was preparing them to travel Ryanair!
The Church we grew up with does not have a good record in relation to promoting companionship. Just the opposite in fact, it even viewed friendships with suspicion. Companionship comes from the Latin compano and it means to break bread together, in other words to connect deeply and share our resources. The fact is that when we do break bread with someone we rarely fall out because little issues get nipped in the bud. It’s when we go apart and create distance that resentment and misunderstanding creep in. Right up to my time in College all close relationships were viewed with suspicion and particular friendships were frowned on and seen as potentially dangerous. There was no understanding that isolation was far more destructive to the human person and was the one thing in the Bible that God had explicitly said ‘was not good’, ‘that man should not be alone’. That twisted thinking was very much in society where to have good friends of the opposite sex outside of your marriage was viewed as a no-no. For anyone who then lost their partner they were left stranded with no support structure. Marriage was seen in such an exclusive light that all your life was supposed to come through that one person – what a burden of expectation that placed on any couple and what an example of flawed and short-sighted thinking. Yet a remnant of it is still with us as old thinking, like old ways dies hard.
So, our training in Seminary taught us to go it alone and be strong and independent. As a priest you were appointed to a parish where you were expected to live in splendid isolation and in relation to celibacy to be anesthetised from the waist down. What a contradiction to the teaching of Christ who sent them out to enjoy their friendships and work together. Circumstances are now forcing a new reality. I am now co-PP of five parishes where, as priests, we work together to share our workload and ensure that areas where there is no priest are looked after. That is the way it needs to be and also the way it should always have been.
Christ advised his disciples to travel light. It only struck me a few days ago that we use the same word in two different ways. Light, as what makes us see, and light as that which is opposed to heaviness. Yet the two seem related because in order to be a being of light, or a light bearer, you have no option but to travel light, and that means trusting in providence. Allowing ourselves to become bogged down by worry and anxiety is a sure way of becoming dark and heavy. Our conversation then begins to revolve around ourselves, our aches, our pains, our problems. A sure way to become ill is to talk nothing but sickness, whereas those who talk and think of peace, happiness and well-being are the ones who enjoy those blessings the most.
In general, most of us don’t pay enough attention to the way we think because how we think is always creating our reality. The Bible teaches that the way we think is how we are. It’s our inner world that is always creating our outer world. It’s so easy to stray into the cu-de-sac of the future by giving into fear, worry and thoughts of the worst possible scenarios, especially if we are dealing with a medical condition. It’s no harm to remember that suffering only comes from living in the past, or in the future. We may have pain or discomfort just now but suffering we have much more control over.
This is where Providence comes in – it comes from the Latin word pro-video which means to see ahead. Providence is the hand of God taking care of all our needs but it is always in the here and now. He never gives us tomorrow’s bread today. That is why he taught us to pray ‘Give us today (and not tomorrow) our daily bread’. Once we allow our thoughts to stray into the future with worry and fear we place ourselves outside that realm of God’s Providence.
To live in the NOW is a challenge for us all, but it is the place, as the word suggests, of No Opportunities Wasted, and is the only place where we have God’s reassurance that all is well and that all will be well as He promises to look after all our needs.
Monday July 15th – Lord, thou art hard on Mothers – Pádraig Pearse
Where there is genuine love, there are no demands, no expectations, and no dependency. A mature mother does not demand that her children make her happy, be the answer to her unlived life, or fill an emotional void. She realises that her role as mother is two-fold, to ensure that they have roots, but also to give them wings. She knows that two birds only fly together because they are free but where there is any tie, they may have four wings but will be unable to fly. Her role is not to try and keep them close but to grant them freedom and only in the enjoyment of that freedom can they achieve their full potential. In the words of Pádraig Pearse she is prepared ‘to suffer in their coming and in their going’. The separating may be challenging and the letting go very painful. However, the reality is that by holding on too long she will destroy the very relationships that she treasures the most.