Jim Cogley – Reflections: Tues 3 Sept – Mon 9 Sept 2024

Tues 3^rd Sept – Celebrate Life

This week’s postings are excerpts from the Celebrate Life Liturgy held in Our Lady’s Island on Sunday 1^st September:

In recent times we have had more than our share of bad news and so good news is always welcome. Consider Christ’s statement where he said, ‘I have come that you may have life and have it to the full’ and in the context of the religion that we grew up with, could you see any evidence that would bear that out? I certainly couldn’t. The religion that I knew was lifeless, heavy and boring. As a kid I used to look at people going into church and blessing themselves with holy water and wondering were they wiping the smile off their faces before entering. Words like joy, gladness and laughter were used occasionally but remained only words. Someone would frown if you spoke in church and since religion was about saving your soul that was serious stuff, so it seemed appropriate to always look serious. Like the little girl who was stroking the nose of her donkey and saying, ‘Neddy, you poor fellow, you must be a Christian because you’ve got such a long face!’

Wed 4^th Sept – The wonder of our being

As Catholics we have a lot to learn and a lot to unlearn about our faith practice and particularly where we might have missed out on joy and real celebration. While there’s so much meat in our rich Christian tradition that we need to eat there’s also bones we need to spit out. It would appear from Christ’s own teaching that anything that doesn’t lead us to fully celebrate the life and humanity that is ours we should regard as suspect. The fact that we are here at all on this earth is an absolute miracle that we should never take for granted. The mathematical guestimate is 1 chance in 15 million, million, million, that’s 15 trillion, so the fact that the Lord wants us to be here with some purpose in mind is a great blessing and source of reassurance. It is a truly great mystery that once we were not, and now we are, and will be for evermore.

Thurs 5^th Sept – Celebrating our Bodies

We come here and we are given a body that is like the cover of a book. It is not the book itself, since that is on the inside. When we die the body is honoured as the container of who we really were and so we sprinkle it with holy water and use incense. Yet our tradition has been more than weak in teaching us to love and celebrate our bodies while we live as a gift from God. It’s all too easy for any of us to think that when God made me, he was only practicing because he didn’t do a very good job. When did we last stand in front of a mirror and give thanks for our body and for the way that is so fearfully and wonderfully made. All too many go through life comparing their body to someone else’s and rejecting the body that is theirs. The problem is that if you don’t like the cover of a book, we are unlikely to uncover the riches that are on the inside. The shape we are is a big concern for so many, perhaps we should be more concerned about the shape we are in and how accepting we are of what God has given us. That last part may be worth repeating, it’s not the shape we are that is important but the shape we are in.

Fri 6^th Sept – Giving Space to our Emotions

We come into the world as emotional beings. We also have an intellect but that is just a speck on a sea of emotion. Then what do we do with our feelings when they become uncomfortable? What we do is endemic, we run and try to avoid them at all costs. The first thing we do today is to grab the mobile phone and start texting or scrolling. Society in general teaches us to find ways to suppress how we feel and in so doing to outlaw our negative emotions. So we try to block out how we feel through alcohol, drugs, medication and in particular by keeping busy all the time. Christ never taught us to suppress how we feel, he even used the phrase ‘love the enemy’, and that could well be applied to how we might feel at any given time. The suppressing of our emotions only ensures that they don’t go away. For a while they go underground but they don’t stay buried for very long. Again and again, they manifest in our bad moods, lack of peace, short tempers and feelings of discontentment. Our ability to enjoy and celebrate our lives is directly related to how we deal with our emotions.

Sat 7^th Sept – Channelling Anger

Many of us have a problem with anger, either too much or too little. But what do we do with it? Generally, we put D in front so that it spells Danger. We don’t like being angry and spend our lives hoping to get rid of it. Let me tell you what deep down you already know, it just doesn’t work. A lifetime of trying to get rid of your anger will only result in more anger and frustration at not being successful. There is another way and it works, at least it does for me. Why not treat your anger not as an enemy, but as a friend and allow it to have a space in your life. If you do, it becomes the source of your creativity because it’s just energy that has been going in the wrong direction. People say to me how can you produce so many pieces of woodcraft and write so many books when your life is so busy. I just say the truth, ‘It’s because of my anger’. I now welcome it into my life and use it as the source of my creativity. It’s great to know that the more anger we have the more creative and energetic we can be.

Sun 8^th Sept – Deaf and Dumb

The Gospel of today is about a young man who was born deaf and because of his deafness had a speech impediment A spiritual writer reflecting on that Gospel tried to put himself into that man’s shoes and what a difference his encounter with Christ must have made. This was what he wrote from the perspective of that individual:

I was born completely deaf and so was deprived of so much that others take for granted. I have never heard my mother or father call me by name. Nor have I ever heard the sounds of children at play, the singing of birds or the wind in the trees. Neither have I ever heard words of comfort, encouragement or advice, or even someone giving out to me. Few people even try to communicate with the deaf, they find it too tedious and time consuming. So my childhood and teenage years could only be described as a hell of total isolation, locked away in my own little world.

The fact that I was practically dumb as well added to my sense of deprivation and isolation. I had no way of explaining myself or expressing my feelings. Some people were most insensitive and even laughed at my stammerings. When you are different that is the one thing that really makes you feel different.

Nor could I contribute anything to my community, so I often felt useless and in the way. To be handicapped is to be set apart. People are often hesitant to touch you and sometimes you would think they feared you.

So I craved for compassion. I was convinced that there wasn’t a single person who understood or pitied me. That was until I learned about Jesus. He was a Jew, I was a gentile but that didn’t deter me from seeking his help. What an experience that was.

First, he took me aside from the crowd and gave me his undivided attention. That made me feel I was important and it also took me away from the curiosity of the gawkers.

It was pointless for him to speak to me so instead he touched me. He made me feel what I couldn’t hear. It was a touch that I could actually hear, tender, patient and loving. He put his fingers into my ears. Then he put some spittle on my tongue and raising his eyes he showed me that it was from God my answer would come. Then with a great sigh he said, ‘Be opened’ and with that my ears were open and my speech became normal. I was cured. Only someone who has been where I had been could appreciate what that meant. To hear and to speak is normal and I had never known what it was like to be normal and to feel I belonged to the human race.

In those months after my cure I discovered some interesting things; that everybody is handicapped in some way and that everybody has impediments that prevent them from using their voice as they were meant to; shyness, fear, insensitivity, anger can all get in the way. And they also have impediments that prevent them from hearing as well…. Prejudice, inattention, refusal to listen.

What I have discovered from experience is that the greatest tragedy is not to be born deaf or dumb but to have ears and yet fail to hear and to have tongues and yet fail to speak.

Hearing and speech are great gifts but without a heart that is able to feel compassion we will never be able to use them well. It is only with the heart that we can listen rightly, and it is only with the heart that we can speak rightly.

The man who touched my ears and my tongue also touched my heart. It was that above all that made me new. That was the real miracle.

Mon 9^th Sept – The Lies we Believe

In our Catholic upbringing we were rarely taught the importance of having self-esteem. The opposite was more the case where self-esteem was drilled out of us. Adults taught they were doing Gods will, and us a favour, by making us feel ashamed of ourselves. Think of the remarks we heard that were like poisoned arrows penetrating our souls that released their venom as we went through life. Some words hurt us deeply, ‘Who do you think you are? You stupid dunce, you will never come to anything, you are just a waste of space’, or the ultimate insult from a parent, ‘We never wanted you anyway, you were a mistake.’ What a legacy we can carry from hearing things like that, and the problem is that we end up believing the lie and apply what was said to ourselves. To really celebrate life, we first must celebrate ourselves, and that may mean casting aside the dark cloak of shame and self-rejection that others, even family may have placed over our shoulders. For me as someone who grew up in the Catholic tradition and being hard on myself, my greatest and most liberating message was to learn to love myself and that is the title of my latest book, When I loved Myself …. I discovered the wonder of my own magnificence.