Jim Cogley: Reflections Tues 7 May – Mon 13 May 2024
Note: The seminar on Healing the Family Tree scheduled for Friday May 17th in Lady’s Island is fully booked. Another is planned for Saturday June 15th and is filling fast. Bookings can be made on 087-7640407.
Tues 7th May – Always the Victim
Whether we like to admit it or not we have all at some point been both victim and perpetrator. It is a part of our shadow side that inevitably we will inflict hurt and pain on others, especially those closest to us. The person who is a victim of bullying or intimidation always has weak boundaries, and this is the real problem, much greater than the fact that he or she is always being picked on. In fact, the greatest weapon in the hand of the bully is in the mind of the victim. It is this weakness that is instinctively picked up by the perpetrator and used to his/her advantage. The victim is like a field that may have a gate but very poor fences. It is inevitable that at some point this weakness is going to be exploited and will continue to happen until the boundary fences are repaired.
Wed 8th May – Speaking Out
“For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.”
A child, or even an adult, who is a victim of bullying usually finds it very difficult to speak about what is happening and to seek help. They seem to have little or no voice to address the injustice. It’s as if their voice has been taken. This gives us an insight into the nature of all forms of intimidation and abuse. The voice is the instrument of power, so what the bully is trying to do is to disempower his victim, and in so doing to bolster his own power. This suggests that the bully is a fearful coward who is quite fearful and weak. On the outside he or she may be able to maintain a facade of appearing to be the strong one but this is a cover up for his or her underlying feelings of inferiority, vulnerability and weakness. For the unfortunate victim the first step towards healing is speaking about what has, or is happening, and in so doing to reclaim his power.
Thurs 9th May – Our Achilles Heel
Brona (not her real name) was a highly qualified nurse tall in stature and fine physique. To the uninitiated she appeared strong and assertive, yet she was out of work because of bullying. Her Achilles heel had been exposed and a much younger, smaller and more vocal lady had taken full advantage. When Brona was asked when she had felt like this before she replied fourteen. She went on to say that at that age she suffered from a skin complaint that left her feeling like a leper. Other girls gave her a hard time and particularly one young lady who never let up on her taunts. This was a difficult period of life she thought she had put behind her until another young lady appeared on the scene who was like a grown-up version of her earlier tormentor. Our past will continue to re-present itself until it is faced and integrated.
Fri 10th May – Underlying Vulnerability
Many people who have been victims of sexual abuse have spent years in counselling. Some would claim to have integrated the memories but still find themselves slipping back into victim mode. A deeper questioning of the nature of their inner work so often reveals a serious lacuna; the question was never addressed as to why the person was so vulnerable in the first place? There is a certain truth in saying that every child is vulnerable, but there are degrees of sensitivity that leave one more susceptible to becoming a victim than the other. Sometimes the reason for this vulnerability is very apparent, like the death of a parent, or sibling, being a replacement child for one that was lost earlier, or being named after, or being identified with a troubled ancestor. So many of these important issues are completely overlooked in counselling and leave the person still stranded in victim mode.
Sat 11th May – Buried but not Dead
During primary school years there was a boy in the class ahead who was bigger and stronger than the rest of us. He had a reputation for bullying and being jealous of a friendship I had, he gave me a particularly hard time. His behaviour had also earned him a not so nice nickname. Time moved on and we went to different schools, but many years later ended up teaching in the same college. This time we were nice to each other and neither brought up the past, and while his nickname had stuck I choose to be respectful and never to use it. Some years into retirement he passed away before his 70th birthday. In the general conversations surrounding his passing I was shocked to hear myself using that derogatory name from his past and realised that the child in me had not yet forgiven him, and still needed to get even.
Sun 12th May – Ascension ‘24
Today on the Feast of the Ascension the Easter Candle is no longer lighting and placed to one side. It 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 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. 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’.
The main thrust 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’.
A few weeks ago during a meeting with Christian Brothers there was a 92 year-old who spoke of his struggle with being being so old and what was his purpose in the world being so frail and having little to offer. He had read a book about old age and it told him that his role was to be in a place of ‘gerio-transitioning.’ This meant, he said, that ‘I need to be learning to let go of everything so that when my time comes I will be holding onto nothing.’ What a great truth because it’s as we live so shall we die. To learn the art of living with open hands is to be able to receive all the next life has in store.
The Buddist tradition teaches a similar truth, namely that suffering is caused by attachment. It is not the same as discomfort or pain. The more we hold on to things or to people 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 is our capacity to have and to truly love. There are so many who flounder, sometimes for decades, in unresolved grief. There’s 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 lives in the past and has 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.
The Paschal Candle is not lit on the Feast of Ascension to remind us not to look for Christ any place else other than primarily in our own hearts and in the hearts of one another.
The image of God, the light of God, is in that place we rarely look, in our hearts. We believe that God’s presence is within us not as a hiding place but where we might discover him at close quarters. In relation to the Ascension St Augustine said, ‘He withdrew from our eyes so that we might return to our own hearts to find him’. When the light goes out in the Paschal Candle we are invited to find that light nearer home in our own heart.
For us Catholics to think of God within us calls for a huge shift of awareness. We were brought up to think of God up there and of Jesus in the tabernacle but certainly not of God in my own heart. Yet the reality is that the true dwelling place of God is the human heart. To take that simple but profound truth on board literally has to transform the way I think about myself and the way I relate to others. If God is within me then I am part of God and so there is absolutely no room for self-negation, self-rejection, self-judgement, self-condemnation or deeming myself unworthy. Any negativity that I direct towards myself is a rejection of God. For so many of us who were almost reared to keep putting ourselves down that thought is quite revolutionary.
If I truly believe that God is within you then the measure of my love and respect for you is the exact measure of my love and respect for God. This thinking is enormously challenging especially when dealing with difficult people and those we just don’t like. It can be all to easy to lock Christ up in a box where we can insulate ourselves from his demands. Can you just imagine what a difference it would make if I truly saw God both in myself and in you. To make that transition is what each of us is called to. The lovely Eastern greeting Namaste that we have been using as a gesture at the sign of peace is a direct reminder of that because it literally means, ‘I greet the divinity within you’.
Mon 13th May – The Past that is Present
Our past has an amazing capacity not so much to come back to haunt us but to actively seek integration. A colleague got badly bullied in school and did his best to put it behind him. He joined the army and served overseas. Later he decided to leave; moved back home, got married and went on to raise a fine family. Next door a business opened, and all was well until the proprietor got married, to none but the individual who had made his life miserable so many years earlier. His past was no longer where he thought he had left it; it was now right where he was and living next door. In the presence of the individual he was no longer a man among men, but a vulnerable child. Such is the power of our past to recreate itself in the present. If we don’t meet it in the person who had caused us grief it will find a close replica and leave us without an escape route. The face may have changed but the feelings will be the very same, with a sense of déjà vu.