Jim Cogley: Reflections Tues 17 Sept – Mon 23 Sept 2024
Tues 17th Sept – Growing Older – Living with Open Hands
It seems to be true that ageing is not an option while growing old is. We can neither turn back the clock or slow it down, but to a large extent we are responsible for the face that greets us when we look in the mirror each morning. It’s our face that reveals our inner life and for a woman it reveals her inner beauty long after the time when rosy cheeks and supple lips have passed. Here in this community of Lady’s Island we have known so many who were not ninety years old but ninety years young. When visitors see women in their late seventies and eighties with smiling faces still serving long hours in the Coffee Shop, many ask what they are on because they sure could do with some of it. In fact, what they are on is one of the big ingredients of happiness and contentment, for those of any age. To be involved in some kind of service in your local community is a key to feeling productive and alive. It’s now well recognised that those who do voluntary service, live lives that are far more fulfilled than those who don’t and receive a form of payment that money can never match.
Wed 18th Sept – Dying Badly
A man said to his wife, ‘Dear when we get older, and if the day comes when I’m dependent on a machine with some liquid being fed into me you know what to do.’ She just turned off the TV and poured his glass of whiskey down the sink! There is a type of old age that we all have good reason to fear and it’s a kind that we can so easily create for ourselves. Society presents us with an image of old age that is disastrous where we are past our best before date and are even into our worst after phase and are a burden on others and society. So many are afraid of dying badly, ending our lives alone, being unloved, dependent on others suffering from dementia and in in some lifeless place. But does it have to be like that? While it is the lot of so many, the living testimony of others is clearly quite the opposite.
Thurs 19th Sept – Venerable Old Age
Here in the western world, we tend to fear old age whereas in many parts of the East it’s something that is looked forward to and so they speak of ‘venerable old age’. In our culture the first stage of ageing for the female is the menopause. I don’t know if there’s a ‘women pause’ yet as I’m still too young! In China this is practically unknown and so they don’t even have a word for it. That’s likely because the attitude to growing older is so different to here. While the old person is not able to be as productive physically, he or she is the wise one, who is able to contribute something that is much more valuable than physical work.
Fri 20th Sept – Ageing Well
I often used to ask one of the oldest men in our community, recently deceased, how he was doing and his answer was always the same, ‘Thank God, I am ageing well’. What better way to live out one’s latter years than to age well. In our society so many are terrified of growing old and so a fortune is spent on age defying treatments. A nip here, a tuck there, some Botox somewhere else. Perhaps even a toupee to cover up the strand long after the tide has gone out! Paradoxically, the ones who are obsessed with remaining young in appearance always seem to be those who become old looking the fastest. We see this particularly in the life of celebrities who in early years owed much of their status to their looks more than their intelligence or achievements.
Sat 21st Sept – Young at Heart
There’s really nothing older than not wanting to grow old. If we become too caught up with outer appearances, the radiance of inner beauty doesn’t always get a chance to shine. That’s where you often see in an older face an inner beauty that is even greater than what nature had granted in their thirties. The secret seems to be, to remain young at heart. Some years ago while a nursing home was in operation in Kilmore, a young attractive nurse came to work. Inevitable one of the elderly men made a grab at her. She fielded off his advances by telling him to ‘feck off’ and calling him ‘an amorous old man’. He just smiled and said, ‘What you forget nurse if that at heart I’m still a young man and now I’m just in an old body’. In every eighty-year-old there’s a forty-year-old wondering whatever has happened and how the heck did it happen so quickly.
Sun 22nd Sept – AMBITION
Many years ago I read a little book called Hope for the Flowers. It was a book about ambition and while a child could read it the story was more for adults than children. It was really about ambition, particularly in the business world, and how we go about achieving our goals. It was about two ambitious slugs that wanted to get to the top and the different methods that they used. Both got there in the end but one did so on the principle that the end justifies the means. Every other slug he met on his journey, that also wanted to get to the top, he used and subdued. He was competitive and determined to win at any cost. Eventually he had so many victims that he could only reach his destination by climbing over their bodies. Once at the top he naturally wanted to celebrate but only then realised that he had no one left to celebrate with, they were all dead. His was indeed a hollow victory. Like so many in the top jobs he had gained recognition but there was no one to give him respect.
The other ambitious little slug also met his fellow travellers on the road and they decided that they were going to make it to the top together. So, they shared their wisdom and resources and when one got injured, they together helped him out and even delayed the journey when necessary. When the top was eventually reached, a bit later than originally planned, it had been a communal effort and so a major celebration was held in honour of their joint achievement. Not only that but the ambitious little slug who had helped them all was given a special place of recognition and elected as the obvious leader.
The story of the two slugs with their contrasting attitudes is something we see happening all around us. There is a kind of blind ambition that can turn a person into a shark or even a monster who is totally oblivious to the feelings of others and has no qualms about how many get hurt as long as they get where they want to be. They tend to be utterly insensitive to the needs of others and don’t care how many they have to walk over as long as they get what they want.
In the Gospel Jesus is burdened and telling his disciples about his forthcoming passion and death. It’s a time when he needs their support and understanding but they can’t hear him. They are so caught up in their little boy games of who is the greatest that there was no pathway between their world and his.
That kind of ambition comes cloaked under many disguises. One of the big ones is the need to provide material security for one’s family where work and business are placed before everything else. The ironic thing is that his wife and family would usually be far happier to see more of him than his income at the end of the year. Often, it’s only when the children have grown up that the father realises that he was never there for them and by that stage it’s too late. The greatest legacy that he could have given them was his presence and memories of their time spent together and then the real sickner comes when he realises that his kids can now earn ten times more than he ever did and don’t even need his money.
When Jesus asked them about what they had been arguing about on the road they had nothing to say. It was the silence of shame; they had no defence. It’s strange how a thing takes its proper place and acquires its true character when it is set in the eyes of Jesus. So long as they thought that Jesus was not listening and that he had not seen the argument about who was the greatest, all seemed fair enough, but when it was exposed to the presence of Jesus it was exposed in all its unworthiness.
The need to be right and to always come out on top in every argument is a big thing in so many of us. I asked a couple who were tearing strips off each other one time, ‘Which is more important, to be right or to remain in relationship?’ Think about it, how many times in the past year have we ever reached that level of humility that we can say ‘I was wrong’. In some marriages the words are never used. One woman said that going up the aisle she knew she was marrying Mr Right but took a few more months to realise that his first name was ‘always’.
If we were to take everything we say or do and set it in the light of Christ and his teaching what a difference it would make. If with everything we were to ask, ‘Could I go on doing this if Christ were watching me?’ If of everything we said we asked, ‘Could I go on talking like this if Christ were listening to me?’ There would be many things we would be saved from doing and saying.
The fact of Christian belief is that there are no ‘ifs’ about it. All things are done and all our words are spoken in his presence. A useful prayer is ‘Lord keep me from saying and doing things for which I will be ashamed in your presence.’
Our faith tells us that one day we will be held accountable for every choice we have made in life, for every word spoken, and for every deed done. What we are is God’s gift to us, who we become is our gift to God. It’s our choices regarding what we say and do that determine who we become, and what we become is our destiny both here and in the hereafter.
Mon 23rd Sept – Rusting Out or Wearing Out?
Society can show us lots of poisonous examples of old age and all the negatives that it brings, but we will also see many around us who are bearers of good news. They have managed to grow old gracefully and you only have to look in their contented faces in order to see that to be the case. They have tapped into that part of themselves, which we call the heart, that can never grow old, and for the person who remains young at heart, while their body may wear out it will never rust out. It would be nice to approach older age with open hands and to see it not as a time to be feared but also as a time of grace.