Jim Cogley Reflections – Tues 27 May – Mon 2 June 2025
For those interested in doing some serious inner work over a number of days a retreat will be given by Jim Cogley and Luba Rodzhuk in An Tobar, Ardbraccan Retreat Centre in Navan. This will begin on the evening of Monday 30th June and conclude on the following Friday. Please make bookings to An Tobar ASAP as numbers are limited; 046-9078973; Postal Code C15 T884.
Tues 27th May – How we see things
Not ‘what’ but ‘how’ we see
A man thought of himself as a miserable failure. Nothing he had ever tried had succeeded either in work, marriage or as a parent. He described his life as always lurching from one problem to the other. It was pointed out to him that
his belief system was responsible for his experience of life and that it even blinded him from seeing himself as the author of his own misfortunes. He was told that if he saw life as a struggle, that is what he would experience, and if he expected problems, he would not be disappointed. He needed to see that life is like driving a car, where the eyes go the car goes. To focus on a wall or a tree is the way to crash, to focus on the road ahead is to proceed. It’s where you allow your vision to take you that will determine where your life will go. This is a universal truth not easy for so many to see!
Wed 28th May – What we see we create
Many go through life with their gaze fixed far too tightly on the failures, hurts and disappointments of the past. This is like driving a car and spending too much time looking in the rear-view mirror. It is vitally important that we do use the mirror constantly in order to be aware of what is coming from behind. However, too much use and it will land us in trouble. Our past is like baggage that we carry through life. It acts like a pair of spectacles created by our past experiences from which we view our future. It is as if what we see in the future is a projection of whatever was back there. Once it gets our attention it begins to determine our direction. Then it has the power to make our tomorrows replicas of our yesterdays, and leave us wondering, ‘How on earth does this keep on happening to me’?
Thurs 29th May – Through the lens of Fear
How our past has the power to create our future until it is integrated was the subject of yesterday’s reflection. It is what can so easily make us feel like a victim of outside forces and rather than take responsibility it’s easier to blame them. Here we take some practical examples in order to understand this truth more fully. A man whose mother lost her husband while he was in the womb substituted her child in his place. From day one he was there to meet her need. Years later, and three failed marriages, he wondered why all his partners had left. The reality was they felt suffocated by his neediness! Having spent two months in hospital as an infant, another man recognized his rejection and abandonment issues to be rooted back there. All his life he so feared abandonment that he would strike first and reject the object of his affections. It was his projected past that was creating his lonely future.
Fri 30th May – Loneliness
A lady who had been through a separation and divorce said to her counsellor that she never believed that the years following could be so difficult. She experienced dreadful loneliness and isolation. Her phone seldom rang, her emails and letters were few, and a lot of time was spent stuck at home. Before, she was often invited to events but now it seldom happened, and she suspected that many of her married friends regarded her as a potential threat. Her self-diagnosis was that she needed to go out and start meeting people again, and this was the advice she expected from her counsellor. He surprised her by saying that she first needed to understand and befriend her loneliness. ‘As long as you are afraid to be alone’, he told her she would ‘end up feeling lonely and this neediness would keep everyone away’.
Sat 31st May – Spoiling the Children
Two parents who had known hardship and deprivation growing up did not want the same for their children so they protected them from suffering in every way they could. They worked hard, made sacrifices and denied themselves. They gave them whatever they asked and allowed them to do whatever they wanted. The children grew up very demanding, ungrateful, with little sense of responsibility, and even angry towards them. Deeply disappointed the parents were at a loss to know where they had gone wrong and how their kids, having got everything, had turned out as they did. One day someone told them the truth that they didn’t want to hear, that what the children needed was love and they were given things, and at the time when they needed limits, they were given license.
Sunday June 1st – Ascension ‘25
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of Christ and as part of our ceremony we extinguish the Paschal candle. The candle represents the Risen Christ, the light of the world, who was present to his disciples for forty days after his resurrection. During that time Jesus had prepared his disciples for the fact that very shortly he was going to leave them but that in his leaving he would remain with them in a new way.
The person he first appeared to after he rose from the dead was Mary Magdalene, who had been his closest companion. She hadn’t recognized him at first until he called her by name. With a heart bursting with excitement you can just imagine the drive she made in his direction order to embrace him. To her he said, ‘Mary, do not cling to me because I have not yet ascended to my God and to your God’. Notice the phrase, ‘Do not cling’. Later he would say to his disciples, ‘It is for your own good that I am going because if I do not go the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit cannot come’. He also made some very paradoxical remarks like, ‘In a short time you will no longer see me and then you will see me again’. Also, ‘I am going away but shortly I will return’.
The main trust of all his teaching around all that time was to teach them the importance of not clinging to what was, of letting go; that if they refused to let him go they could not have him in that new way. He was really saying that while once I was with you now I will be within you. Physically he would be absent but spiritually he would remain and so his final words were, ‘I will be with you always, even to the end of time’.
The Buddhist tradition teaches a similar truth, namely that most if not all suffering is caused by attachment. The more we hold on to things or to people or the past the more suffering we create for ourselves. We become insecure and then jealousy can destroy what we have and want the most. The more we learn to let go the greater our capacity to have and to truly love. There are so many who flounder, sometimes for decades, in unresolved grief and since Corona (Covid), that number has increased significantly. There may have been a loss or a series of losses he or she has never got over. Someone has died or a relationship has broken up and years later they are still holding on to that person for dear life. So he or she has an existence rather than a life and lives in the past with little or no hope for the future. The mistaken belief is the more I hold on the more I have, while the real truth is that the more I let go the more I will feel connected. Just consider the things and people we try to hold onto and notice the damage it does to us and to the relationship.
Usually at Mass we are not challenged to do anything too physical beyond maybe blessing ourselves and genuflecting. So instead today I am going to invite you to participate in a little exercise. I am always conscious of how easy it is to get stuck in unresolved grief and for anyone who has lost a loved one and feels that they have never regained their peace and contentment this little exercise may be of help.
First if you feel comfortable doing so just close your eyes and think of the person closest to you who has passed on. Imagine him or her beside you and if there is anything you never had a chance to say to that person take this opportunity to do so now. It may work both ways and he or she may wish to apologise to you and ask your forgiveness for some hurt they caused you.
Next notice in the encounter how much you would like to hold tightly to that person. Now see yourself clinging tightly with your two fists clenched as if you are determined not to let go. As you hold tighter bring your fists closer to your heart. Notice how your body tenses and your heart space closes down. Hold that for a few moments, long enough to realize that you are only half breathing and half alive. Next slowly stretch out your arms and open out your hands. In doing so you are releasing your loved one to the Lord. However also notice what has happened to your heart space – how it has opened out and you are now free to invite that loved one and Christ into your heart.
If you have done so that is the greatest expression of love you can show to anyone who has died – giving them the freedom to move on and giving yourself permission to live fully once again.
This is the great truth of the Ascension that it is in not clinging to what was, that we open our hearts to what is, and while our loved one is no longer with us as they were, they remain with us wherever we are because now we carry them in our hearts.
Monday June 2nd – Feeling Small
A lady worked as a secretary to a high-powered CEO. She was terrified of her boss’s angry outbursts when she made even a small mistake. She explained that every time he lost his temper, she went speechless and felt paralyzed. This then caused her to make even more mistakes. Every outburst made her feel ‘small’ and it was this word, when she reflected on it, that helped her to see that in her mind he was similar to her father, and here was where her fear was rooted. In relation to her boss, she was like a child again. She began to accept and love that part of her that was causing her grief and came to see that this belligerent boss only had as much power over her as she had been giving him. As she changed her thinking, what she began to see in him was a scared little mouse whereas before she saw a roaring lion.