Jim Cogley: Postings Tuesday 25-Mon 31 July 2023
Tue 25th July
Loneliness
Loneliness is undoubtedly one of the great cancers of our age that just eats into the bones. More and more people find themselves living on their own, often without any awareness of who might be living next door. Many families exist in isolation behind locked gates and with no connection to their wider community. The sense of belonging and being part of a parish community is fast breaking down except in more rural areas. Houses of hospitality, with an open door policy, where people at a loss could reconnect, are few and far between. Many say they would need to make an appointment with a neighbour before dropping in. Even doing pastoral visitation it has become increasingly difficult to find anyone at home. All of this has been a growing trend in society for a long time. Doctors surgeries were filled with patients presenting many symptoms that masqueraded the deeper reality of what they could not say, and which could not be medicated, that they were feeling just plain lonely and the pain was unbearable.
Wed 26th July
Loneliness and Aloneness
There is a big difference between loneliness and aloneness. The latter is part and parcel of being human, where we are born alone, and we die alone. It is our constant travelling companion through life. This stands in marked contrast to what has been termed ‘vicious loneliness’ which is destructive and death dealing. Someone suffering from this ‘disease’ will be likely to wear a path to a doctor’s surgery, looking in the wrong place, in the hope of finding an answer to his or her pain. If we take the view that issues get into tissues than it is highly likely that many serious conditions can be rooted in loneliness where the person has lost the will to live. In one cancer case that stubbornly resisted all medical intervention, and baffled the medical experts, the patient made an admission before she died. She said that her wealthy lifestyle, and apparently happy marriage, was all a sham, and she had been desperately unhappy and lonely for many years. Her diagnosis brought relief because it afforded an escape route, and deep down she didn’t want the treatment to work. The unconscious desire to die will tend to be greater than the will to live at a conscious level. More powerful than our will is our unconscious.
Thurs 27th July
Who Am I Missing?
When loneliness is a familiar travelling companion, this is a question that is well worth asking, ‘Who am I really missing?’ if on my own. Is it that ‘special’ someone who would be the answer to my loneliness? Should that person arrive and we both seem to be the answer to each others loneliness, would we not just be creating a lonely co-dependent relationship? Intense loneliness can poison the best of relationships with unrealistic expectations. It also points to a need for deeper enquiry. What part of myself am I missing? This can be asked in different ways; what part of my story am I least at home with; what is it about myself that I have never revealed to another; have I closed the door on childhood trauma and tried to put it behind me? Such issues as abuse, alcoholism, domestic violence and loss are like parts of my soul that have become disconnected and live an independent existence. Their cry for integration is often experienced as ‘vicious’ debilitating loneliness.
Fri 28th Jul
Spiritual Loneliness
The term ’spiritual loneliness’ is not often used and so may be unfamiliar to many. Yet it a very real and universal type of loneliness that is ever increasing as we lose our connection to Spirit and succumb to media pressure to even distance ourselves from our spiritual roots. Spiritual loneliness is really the disease of a secular society that tries to deny our intrinsic spiritual nature. It is not a longing for that ‘special’ someone or the need to have more contact with others. Rather it is a sense of not feeling connected to a deeper source; a sense of restlessness and inner emptiness that no thing or no one can seem to fill. It is a sense of incompleteness and having a void within ourselves. No matter how full our lives may be we still lack a sense of fulfillment. Spiritual loneliness affects every part of our lives to the extent that to outer appearances all may seem wonderful. I may have a great partner, a loving family, a nice house, enjoy a good career and be considered well off. Yet no one could believe that inside my reality is so different and while my life looks like a doughnut, I feel like the hole. Having milked all the idols of life dry, and got great satisfaction in doing so, I am still left with an empty bucket. This is spiritual loneliness, it is a symptom of heart restlessness and a need for connection to source.
Sat 29th July
The Loneliness of Disconnection
It almost seems old-fashioned to suggest that while there is an inevitable loneliness that comes from being disconnected from source, that the antidote is simply prayer or meditation. The Christ of the Gospels comes across as a solitary figure. Even though surrounded by his band of close followers he was still very much his own person. This inner strength and integrity came from continuously being re-nourished at source. His entire ministry was based on knowing who he was as the Son of God ‘in whom the Father was well pleased’. This connection was continuously renewed by sustained periods of prayer. Even at the expense of ministry, where the crowds were crying out for him, he said no to their demands and yes to times of deep communion in prayer. This was the secret of his ministry and the source of his power.
Sun 30th July
Treasure in the Field
Some years ago I heard a remarkable story from a man who was a native of Lady’s Island. I have no reason to believe it to be untrue because he told it as one of his most vivid childhood memories. It goes back a long time to around 1870. The man who told me was then in his 80’s and it was relayed to him by his father and concerned his uncle. Together they had travelled in a horse and cart to a place called Sceachmolan near Murrintown, and while travelling the father told him a story about the place and the two brothers who once lived there called Micheal and John. As a young man John had a recurring dream that went on for years. The dream was that if he went to England and stood on the middle of London Bridge he would find his fortune. Times were tough living off a small farm; both were in their forties and quite poor.
One day at a fair in Wexford John met a man who in the course of buying two cattle ended up telling him of this recurring dream. He encouraged him to follow his dream even though he had never been on a boat or train or even seen a big city. It was a daunting journey but he went. For five days he walked the bridge and felt stupid, wondering what he was doing there. ‘One more day and then I’m off home’ he told himself ‘and so much for stupid dreams’. Next day as he stood gazing at the river below, a man tapped him on the shoulder, and asked if he were looking for something? He eyed up the stranger and eventually told him his story.
The stranger laughed and said in reply. ‘Forget about your dream and go back home. For much of my life I have been dreaming of a place called Sceachmolan in Wexford and how if I dug under an apple tree in the bottom of a garden I would find a crock of gold. It’s a tree on its own just by a fence and with a mountain in view.’ John knew the tree well for it was in his own back garden and he packed his few belongings and returned home as fast as he could. He got his spade and dug around the tree. He struck something solid and a crock with a lid was uncovered that could hold about a gallon of water. Inside were a considerable number of gold sovereigns. It was happy days in a time of poverty. They lived well off the proceeds for a number of years but the well ran dry and they slipped back into poverty.
One day a man of the roads called and John gave him a mug of tea. The traveller who was a native Irish speaker kept looking at the crock on the dresser and John showed him something written in Gaelic on the inside. Can you read that he asked? ‘Sure’ he said, ‘it reads, Faoin ceann seo tá ceann eile – Beneath this there is another.’ As soon as the traveller had left John had his spade in action and sure enough found another crock, again with lots of sovereigns.
The man who was telling the story said he remembered it so well because when John died he was at the auction with his father and he saw that very crock with the writing being sold for the princely sum of one pound. His fathers big regret on the way home was that he didn’t buy it.
So what John thought he had to travel so far to look for, he had to come home to find. It’s like that in life, we have to do a lot of searching and peering over bridges before we even know where to look for and what we really need.
Which brings us to the Gospel with a very similar message – The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a treasure hidden in a field that someone finds. He hides it again. Goes off happy, sees it more valuable than everything else he owns, so he sells what he has and buys the field. What is the treasure and where is the field?
Looked at from the broader picture presented in the Scriptures the treasure is a symbol of our true selves that always lied hidden in the field of our lives behind so many layers of falsehood. We so often put on a face to meet the faces that we meet. When someone asks us how we are we reply fine when the same ‘fine’, if we were honest could stand for Fecked-up Insecure, Neurotic and Eccentric. A false smile can conceal a lot of sadness and unhappiness. Similarly we try to accumulate wealth or things in the mistaken belief that the more we have the more we are, and the happier we will be.
The kingdom is definitely not about when we die and go to heaven. Its much more about the here and now and how to find happiness peace and contentment in the present. Jesus and the Buddha were very similar in their teachings about this. The Buddha spoke about all suffering and unhappiness being caused by attachment to external things and that such attachments divorce us from the reality of our true selves. Jesus spoke of the man selling what he owned, which is much the same thing – he let go of what he had out there in order to come into full possession of what he could only have on the inside.
We are so programmed to think of happiness being out there, somewhere beyond the rainbow. Someone will make me happy; something will make me happy; there’s always a happening, a boat coming in that I’m waiting for that will bring me happiness. Yet when we think about it realistically; has anyone ever made us happy in the long term. Has anything ever fulfilled its promise of happiness? Can anyone or anything fulfill our expectations? It boils down to the fact that happiness is an inside job and so Jesus speaks of the kingdom of heaven being in here and never out there. It’s always at home in Sceachmolan and never to be found on London Bridge.
Mon 31st July
Wasting Time
Viewed from a secular perspective prayer is a pure waste of time. If time means money then we are not making any, and if we believe that we are only as good as we are useful then prayer is non-productive. Yet it is the experience and witness of those who have a good prayer/meditation discipline that the most creative and even lucrative ideas come from a deeper source and rarely when we are distracted by busyness. In fact, when we appreciate the value of prayer we come to recognize that the busier we are the more we need to give time to prayer. It is also observable that the quality of presence from a person of prayer is completely different to someone whose mind is going in many different directions. The ability of such a person to listen in a way that is life-giving and transformative is tangible. People of prayer and interiority have an inner strength and resilience that when the storms of life came against them they hold their peace and still stand firm.