Jim Cogley’s Reflections: Tues 15 July – Mon 21 July 2025
For ordering books online go to Jimcogley.com
Note: Email is frjimcogley@gmail.com
Tues July 15th – Betrayals in Relationships
At one point in the Gospels Peter professed undying loyalty to his master. Yet within days he had denied on oath that he ever knew him. Such professions of love and promises followed by the worst betrayals are played out every day in close relationships. A man may profess loyalty and undying love to his partner and within days act in a manner that is in total contradiction to what he has said. Usually when someone continually repeats and goes overboard with their promises it can be a red flag that the opposite intention is lurking close to the surface of their unconscious. With an addiction this is an ongoing recurrence, like promising to never get drunk again. Similarly, if he is continually accusing his partner of being unfaithful it is a good indication that he is projecting his own issues onto her. Either he has already been unfaithful, or this is something he is struggling with.
Wed July 16th – Saying and Doing
How can there sometimes be such a huge contradiction between what someone says and what that person does? The famous words of Shakespeare have a biblical quality, ‘To thine own self be true and it must follow as the day the night that thou canst be false to any man’. Only to the extent that anyone is true to themselves can they be true to anyone else. Our inner betrayals will always lead to either outer manifestations or if not, inner strayings of the heart. He may wait for the wife to go to bed so he can watch porn. Where we have ‘no go’ areas in our lives our closest relationships will also suffer from the same ‘no go’ areas and these will also affect the quality of communication. The bottom line is that if someone is living a superficial lifestyle and divorced from their depths it will be their unlived life that will prove detrimental in the relationship.
Thurs July 17th – Needy Love
A dynamic that is often at play in many relationships is a profession of love that is based on one or both partners need. It is very different to say, ‘I need you because I love you’ as opposed to, ‘I love you because I need you.’ The latter sounds attractive to another who is also insecure and needy. It is a wonderful boost to the ego to feel so needed. Yet in that statement are bundles of entrapments that with the passage of time will inevitably come to the surface. If my love is based on need, I don’t require an equal partner but a slave whom I can own, who will always be there at my beck and call, who will have no life of their own, who is not allowed to have other friends. In this kind of relationship, the other person never feels free or encouraged to follow their own path and there will always be jealousy, insecurity, control and possessiveness lurking close by.
Fri July 18th – A Painful Awakening
The following is a quote from a man who was in the process of awakening and reflecting on his life. ‘At twenty-two I met a lovely girl, and we fell madly in love. We felt as if we were the answer to each other’s deepest needs and our chemistry was explosive. We were inseparable for nearly two years before the cracks began to appear. Then we were forced to look at what we had both carried into the relationship that was glaringly obvious now that our sexual attraction was wearing thinner each day as we became constantly embroiled in disagreements. These emotional outbursts were shocking to both of us as we had often vowed earlier that we would never cause hurt to each other. Now we were seriously hurting the one we loved the most. It was as if a side of each of us that we never knew existed had come out of nowhere. It had evaporated our former bliss and excitement at being together and sometimes we felt as if we were relating as strangers who didn’t know each other’. (Continued tomorrow)
Sat July 19th – No Adult Around
(Continued from yesterday) ‘What was happening in our relationship was a complete mystery at the time, but with painful reflection it’s now obvious that we had slipped into a place of reacting as children and were no longer relating as adults. On the surface we appeared to be two adults with three children while the reality was that there wasn’t an adult in the home. We had each come from very dysfunctional backgrounds with a host of unmet needs and we were looking to each other to meet those needs. Our childhood anger at those needs never having been met was now directed towards each other and from where we were coming from, each time we argued, we hadn’t even met each other. As our children went through their different growth phases they were mirroring and awakening the parts of us that we thought we had so left behind as to believe they no longer existed. What we discovered was that it is the very nature of relationship to expose our deepest wounds so that slowly we come to the realization that placing the burden of our unmet needs onto another person’s shoulders and not taking responsibility for them ourselves is a sure way of hurting the one we love and damaging what we love the most.’
Sunday July 20th – Doing v Being
The first time I heard the Martha Mary story expounded on was more years ago than I care to remember back in the little church of Clearistown. The explanation given by the priest was simplistic to say the least, even to the ears of a ten-year-old altar boy serving Mass. He took the line that Martha represented the religious orders that were active in the church like teaching or nursing while Mary represented those with a higher vocation who were the contemplatives and had chosen the better part. Years later I heard it presented as laity versus religious where the lay life was the active life and the religious was more the contemplative side and how both were necessary in the Church.
I don’t think that such explanations were ever valid, even back then, and certainly not for today. Martha and Mary don’t represent two different groups or even two different people, what they do represent is two aspects of ourselves that we are struggle with constantly in order to keep a balance in our lives. Let me share an example:
Some time ago I worked with someone who was a typical Martha figure even from a very early age. She had spent all of her fifty years doing and achieving. At family gatherings she was the one who was up and at it, busy with all the cooking and cleaning that had to be done and resenting those who were just sitting around and chatting. She felt totally taken for granted by her family who never showed her an ounce of appreciation for all her efforts. In her work life she had achieved much that she could be proud of, was very well qualified, a brilliant musician and now running a successful business. Her entire life had been spent doing and achieving. Her identity and how she valued herself as a person was very much based on what she had achieved and how well she had performed. In fact, she was a workaholic and the one thing that frightened her was failure. If she failed it was never a question of something having not worked but of her being a failure as a person.
The reason she came to me was because she was so unhappy, she described herself as running on empty, always looking for something but never finding it and becoming more and more lost and disillusioned. Like Martha she was always there doing for others but rarely if ever being there for herself.
People like her are always looking for fulfilment outside themselves and often fail to realize that it is actually within. That’s where the Mary figure comes in; she is the one who sits at the Lord’s feet and listens which makes him comment that she has chosen the better part. At purely friendship level we tend to value someone who is there for us even more than the person who does things for us. But it is never about one versus the other, it’s more about keeping the two in balance. The person who sits on their backside all day is of little earthly use while the one who never sits still but runs rings around themselves is of no heavenly use. Contemplation and action have traditionally been seen like two oars. By overusing any one we simply go round in circles.
The person who is hyperactive may be quite lonely and afraid to face the pain of his or her own emptiness. Not only will he or she be addicted to work but also most likely they will also be dependent on others approval always looking over the shoulder to determine what others are thinking. Without having some space for quiet in our lives we really leave no space for God and so we have to substitute other things. That’s really where we are at in the Ireland of today. Life has never been so full and yet we have never felt so unfulfilled
The founder of A.A., Bill Wilson, once said that if we don’t find some spiritual basis for living, we die. How can this be done without giving time for reflection? Finally, there is a story of a little Jewish child who went to the rabbi and asked, ‘Why does God not speak to us today just as he did to Moses, Abraham and the prophets of old?’ The old rabbi gently bent down and whispered into the child’s ear, ‘Because we don’t bend down low enough to listen?’ It’s our pride that gets in the way and the noisy world in which we live can stifle the voice of God unless we take time to be in his presence. Perhaps that’s something of the message that the gospel of today has to teach us.
Mon July 21st – Emotional Weight Carriers
A less obvious and more subtle form of betrayal in relationships is where one person is expected to carry the emotional weight of both. This dynamic is least obvious and may not even be classed as a betrayal, but it can even prove fatal either to the relationship or to the weight carrier. It occurs where one person may be a livewire but living entirely in their heads and quite divorced from his or her emotional life. This driven personality may appear very successful and seem to have it all together. Being too busy to engage with or process any emotions, they go underground. However, it is highly likely that a sensitive partner can pick up on what is not expressed and feel heavy and drained. On the surface, the relationship may seem to be working with little disagreements while underneath something more sinister is happening. The party who is not aware may be carrying the weight of the other’s unexpressed emotions and even be in danger of becoming sick because of that burden.