Fr Jim Cogley
Recently someone asked a very searching and far-reaching question. How can I live the Gospel message within the context of my quite limited life? The person asking was retired and quite involved with her extended family and engaged with a number of charitable organizations, but still felt that there was so much more that she could be doing. I immediately thought of a quote from the Prophet Micah 6:8 where he gives an answer that is quite balanced and can be applied to every aspect of life. What does the Lord your God require of you? The answer he gives is: ‘To act justly, to love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God.’ This is always a good starting point where acting justly is our hallmark, where we are seen to practice forgiveness and we have no inflated sense of our own importance.
My sense of the lady who asked this question seemed that she was already practicing what the Prophet Micah prescribed. Her question seemed to imply a deeper search, that went way beyond any external doing. The woman was retired and in that context her question needed to be addressed. The first half of our life tends to be about doing, achieving, contributing, and by our efforts hopefully making the world a better place. For most it is also about family life and as a parent placing others needs before your own. In that world of making a living and responding to the urgent demands of life there is usually not much time for oneself. This tends to change as we get older and then the real challenge is to radically practice self-care. This is where the second half of life is an invitation to come home to my-self. Far from this being some kind of ego trip it is also the essence of the spiritual journey where coming home to myself is also coming home to my God.