There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams - not through
her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything.
He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion.
The Great Gatsby
I have just seen Baz Luhrmann’s, The Great Gatsby, as I’m sure many of you have done or will do. Perhaps you have read
F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel. I first read The Great Gatsby when I was a university student of English Literature in the
seventies and was utterly fascinated with this tale of obsession. One definition of obsession is, ‘the domination of one's
thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire etc’, and this is exactly what happened to Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s
entire person and his life were dominated by his desire for Daisy, the idea that he could recapture what he had
experienced five years earlier and move forward into the future with this desire fulfilled and this dream realised. His
thoughts and feelings were of nothing other, his resources were all channelled into this, his choices had one outcome in
sight. Every human being has dreams, ideals, vision or goals, and often people throw themselves wholeheartedly and
passionately into the fulfillment of these. There is nothing inherently wrong with this and often this passion and
dedication lead to lives of great generosity, courage and even heroism. So it is interesting to reflect on the question of
what constitutes an obsession as opposed to the healthy pursuit of a vision, and why obsession can be destructive
rather than life-engendering.
In the story of Jay Gatsby we find some answers to that question. What we see most obviously and tragically is that
Gatsby’s world shrank. Reality for him became smaller and smaller and yet paradoxically it became huge. The
fulfillment of his dream consumed him, blocking out other realities. It was his all, but at the same time his vision was
constricted and diminished. He withdrew into an inner world, and there he nurtured his dream and his plans to realise
it, and the boundaries of his experience of reality shrank accordingly. Such was the domination of this desire that he
became unable to engage with the actual, objective realities surrounding the fulfillment of this dream. He was unable to
permit them to inform and shape his decisions. And as a result, the realisation of this dream became more and more
impossible, for Gatsby, unable to accept the realities of the situation, was living in an illusion. As Nick Carroway says in
the quote above, ‘It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion’.
Obsession takes on a life of its own and becomes the master of all. Gatsby’s obsession was symbolised by the flashing
green light at the end of the dock on the opposite side of the bay where Daisy lived. It was the single point of Gatsby’s
focus.
So we see that the symptoms of obsession are things such as narrowness of vision, shrinking reality, fantasy and illusion,
inability to admit of anything or engage with anything outside of the obsessive focus. I think that as far as our human
growth goes, and certainly with regard to our spiritual growth, obsession has a tragic dimension to it. I am using the
term tragic here in the sense of unfulfilled human potential – a diminishment of the possibilities of human nature rather
than the flowering of it. We see this tragedy played out in the story. Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy meant that he lived
in a fantasy. His dream of a life with Daisy had in reality ended five years earlier, yet he persisted in it, planned around it
and focused solely on a woman who had moved on from him. His belief that he could recapture this was an illusion, and
there is always something deeply pitiful and sad about someone living in an illusion. For that person it is alive and real,
but objectively it has no substance and can never be fulfilled. Stories of people living in an illusion always leave us
feeling empty and with a deep sense of waste. If you have seen the film or read the book, you will remember the scene
in the hotel room in New York where Gatsby frantically tries to convince Daisy that she never loved Tom Buchanan and
he pleads desperately with her to tell Tom that. But even the shallow Daisy cannot do that, for it is not true.
The other tragic dimension of obsession that we are drawn into in this story is the way it plays itself out relentlessly to
the very end. There is nothing that can put a brake on it. It is like a runaway train, careering ahead with only one
possible conclusion. Freedom to reflect, discern and choose is lost. Wisdom is lost. That deeply defining characteristic
of humanity, free will, seems to vanish. Another tragic aspect we see is to do with the self-image of the person with the
obsession. Gatsby was immersed in an all-consuming struggle to prove himself worthy of Daisy’s love and devotion.
Hence his extravagant home, parties and lifestyle, and the climax of that is that poignant scene where finally he has
Daisy in his house and in a frenzy he pulls out shirt after shirt, especially ordered in from Paris, and flings them around
Daisy. It is such a pitiful moment really, a cry to be noticed, to be seen as worthy and to be accepted by this woman who
came from ‘old money’. But with each step along the way Gatsby moved further and further away from any possibility
of authentic self-realisation. He was reduced to that one point. In the end we are left with a life that was given over to
something that could never be, a sacrifice that did not give birth to life. The word sacrifice comes from the Latin sacer
(sacred) plus facere (to make) and implies a greater good coming from the act itself. Gatsby gave his all in order to bring
this about, but it proved empty and led to nothing.
This is the great tragedy of obsession. The Great Gatsby is a story of obsession writ large, but in each of our lives this
can be played out too. What might our obsessions be? The fears we have that can debilitate us and constrict our world.
Relationships we feel we are losing. Grudges. Playing scenes over and over in our minds. Dependent relationships. Old
wounds. Old conversations. Old rejections. Old injustices. Our obsession may be in the form of anxieties or guilt. The
endless preoccupations that reduce our reality to the confusion of thoughts and concerns milling around in our heads.
Anger. Regret. These things can take hold of us and debilitate us. They sap our energy and bind us. Our world becomes
smaller and smaller. Obsession makes us more and more ‘un-free’. We become like Lazarus, bound in the tomb, and we
need to hear Jesus say, as he said then, ‘Unbind him and let him go free’ (John 11).
What does our Judaeo-Christian spiritual tradition have to say to us on this matter? There are a few key characteristics
that are at the heart of our spiritual tradition and which, if we embrace them, will lead us away from the effects and
harm of obsession and set us firmly on the path to life, and indeed holiness. About two and a half thousand years ago,
at the time of the great Hebrew prophets, one of them, a man named Jeremiah, said this:
“Stop at the crossroads,
look for the ancient paths;
Ask: ‘Where is the way that leads to what is good’?
Then take that way, and you will find rest for yourselves”.
‘Where is the way that leads to what is good’? We are invited into an ongoing search for what is true and good and we
are asked to be open to this search, to what we may find and to where it may lead us. This requires humility and
courage. Jesus had something to say about this too in his promise that if we seek we shall find, if we knock the door
shall be opened (Matthew 7). We need to be persistent in our search for what is authentic, for what is true and right.
But there is something else too we need to keep in mind: just as Jeremiah’s advice is to seek the way that leads to what
is good, so Jesus, elsewhere, tells us that whatever we ask in his name we shall be given (John 14). The key part of this
is, ‘in my name’. In other words, we are to seek what will bring authentic life, what will help us grow in the kind of life
Jesus himself lived and offers us. It is not just anything that will do! Rather, we are invited into a process of
discernment, to know what is good and to seek it. This journey expands our vision and our horizons. We have to pause
regularly, and we have to let go of our iron grip on how we see things working out. The obsessive mind is unable to do
this for it is totally consumed and, as we have seen, withdraws from the search for wisdom.
Right at the heart of our Ignatian and Mary Ward tradition we find a beautiful expression of the path to authentic life
and wisdom. Mary Ward spoke a lot about ‘God’s dream’ for her and of her ‘deep longings’ and ‘God’s deep longings’.
‘I listened to God’s deep dream for me and felt a longing to respond to God’s invitation’, she said. She recognized that
the two deep longings must meet – hers and God’s. This is very much at the heart of our spiritual tradition. St Paul
expresses this in his particular way when he says, ‘It is now no longer I who live but Christ lives in me’. And elsewhere he
says that we must take on the mind of Christ. Christian spirituality is about personal transformation. It is an inwardoutwards movement, for this personal transformation will inform our choices and provide a sure path for us. Ignatius, in
his Spiritual Exercises, counsels us to let God be at the centre of our lives. He also recognises that we can become
attached to things and that this attachment will shift our focus away from God. In his First Principle and Foundation, he
says:
All the things in this world are gifts from God,
presented to us so that we can know God more easily
and make a return of love more readily.
As a result, we appreciate and use all these gifts of God
insofar as they help us to develop as loving persons.
But if any of these gifts become the center of our lives,
they displace God
and so hinder our growth toward our goal.
Ignatius presents the picture of a person whose primary orientation is towards God. He invites us to recognise what he
calls the ‘inordinate attachments’ we may have, and to let them go. These inordinate attachments may be any of things
I’ve mentioned above that become our obsessive focus and dominate us, control our thoughts, feelings and choices. It is
easy to identify the negative attachments we have because we clearly see the harmful impact they have in our lives and
recognise our need to detach from them, but Ignatius also invites us to go further along this path of detachment. He
reminds us that we can become attached to the so-called good things too. Everything is a gift from God, he says, and
these gifts are to be used and enjoyed in such a way that they enable us to progress in our journey into becoming loving
people, fulfilling our potential for personal transformation into the likeness of Christ. That is the goal of Christian
spirituality, and all we have and all that befalls us, should be seen as a means to that end. What this requires, day by
day, is that we develop the art of listening to ourselves and looking honestly at our lives. In the Ignatian spiritual
tradition this practice is called the examen. The examen is recommended as a daily practice and it involves taking some
time each evening to look back over our day and notice the times and the ways we have moved away from embracing
life as offered to us by Jesus (Ignatius refers to this as desolations), and the ways we have opened ourselves to this
(consolations). This is a practice which will enable us to become aware of those things that begin to preoccupy us and
sap us of life. On the other hand, it is also a practice which will open our eyes to the beautiful working of grace in our
lives – that often gentle and sometimes hidden ‘softening’ of ourselves as we let God in.
The contemporary spiritual writer, Ronald Rolheiser, in the introduction to his collection of essays, Forgotten Among the
Lilies, says that it is only by trusting in God’s grace and providence, that we can move beyond our obsessions and rejoice
in what we have and who we are. I think trust is the opposite of obsession. Obsession says that without the object of
our desire or the fulfillment of that ideal or vision, we may disintegrate, that our life will be nothing, we will be nothing.
But trust says that there is something greater than ourselves and we must let that shape us and mould us and inform all
that we are and do. And in that journey we will have to let go of some of the ‘details’ we have planned in order to
remain faithful it.
Being open to God’s grace is beautifully expressed in the image of the potter and the clay that the prophet Jeremiah
uses. Jeremiah went down to the potter’s house and the potter was there working at his wheel, but unhappy with what
he produced he began again, reshaped and remoulded the clay until he was satisfied. And Jeremiah exhorts the people
of ancient Israel to be like the clay in the potter’s hands and let God shape them. ‘Be like the clay in the potter’s hands’:
there is something immensely satisfying and real about this. It is authentic Christian spirituality because it recognises
that real spiritual wisdom and maturity lie in letting God be God in our lives. Being moulded by the ‘potter’ doesn’t
mean being without dreams, goals and vision - but what it does mean is allowing the Spirit to enliven, shape, direct and
give substance to all these things as we engage with life with an open heart and mind. And it means being willing to let
the details change. When I look at my own life, and I am sure you may find this too, I see that many of the ‘details’ are
not what I had originally planned. But when I’m willing to let go of those details, I see too that there is a deeper dream
that is leading me on and that is given shape and form in ways I hadn’t necessarily imagined.
As we are enjoying this glorious autumn season, I thought the image of an autumn tree, shedding its leaves and standing
bare, in trust, would provide a perfect meditation on the spiritual path away from obsession.
Slowly
she began to let go,
first she surrendered her Green
then the Orange, Yellow and Red,
finally she let go of her Brown.
Shedding her last leaf
she watched its journey to the ground,
And she stood empty and silent, stripped bare,
wearing the colour of emptiness.
Leaning against the winter sky
she began her vigil of trust.
The sunrise and sunset watched with tenderness;
clothing her with silhouettes
they kept her hope alive.
They helped her understand that
her emptiness,
her readiness to receive,
were giving her a new kind of beauty.
Every morning and every evening
they stood in silence,
waiting and trusting.
Ms Kerry McCullough
Chaplain