RETIREMENT

Retirement: what a wonderful word! I wondered what it really means and even if there is a good definition to the notion. My dictionary doesn’t go down that road. It simply says that retirement is the noun for the verb retire. It defines that word this way: “1a leave office or employment, esp. because of age b cause (a person) to do this 2 withdraw; go away; retreat 3 seek seclusion or shelter  4 go to bed”.

Let’s see. I have left office or, rather, left my office at the church. It is empty and ready for my successor to fill it with his books and memorabilia he has been carted around throughout his ministry.  But my new office is filled with what was in my old office. I have not left my office but I am unemployed. No more pay checks coming in; only pension and social security.

And yes, I have retired because of age. It’s not that I am so incapacitated that I can no longer do the ministry required of a priest. It is simply that it was time, time to move on to the next phase of my life, whatever that phase will entail. Part of the joy, and I suspect, the fear in retiring is learning what life will bring once you no longer have a daily ministry to which you have been called to fulfill.

Fortunately, looking at that definition again, no one forced me to retire. The Senior Warden, the Vestry, even the Bishop did not coming calling and say to me, “Bill, it’s time to call it a career.” It was my choice, but it was also time, even if the powers to be never said that it was. It was time, after over 44 years as a priest, to retire from fulltime active ministry and move on with my life.

The second definition of retire is to withdraw, go away, retreat. Well, for better or worse, to the dismay of some, perhaps, I know I am not going away. A vacation now and then, visits to children and grandchildren, hanging out with siblings, yes. Otherwise, you can find me at our home in Cranberry Township. I am not withdrawing from the world, even if that might seem mighty tempting at times. However, I might go on a retreat now and again but never in a retreat-from-the-world mode of existence.

As for seeking seclusion and shelter, personally I had my fill of that many years ago in my twelve years of seminary living. Don’t get me wrong. That was, for me, a wonderful and needed time in my life. The friends I made during that time are like brothers to me because of and in spite of the secluded and sheltered life we had to lead. But that was in a different time and in a very different world than is ours today.

One thing I am looking forward to in retirement is going to bed – whenever I choose, getting up whenever I choose, taking a nap whenever I choose. For me “going to bed” is shorthand for being able, God and health – and my Beloved Wife – willing, to be free to do whatever I want to do: no schedule, no clock, no calendar. Yes, my calendar is already filling up, as all retirees soon discover. But it is being filled with what I choose to place there. All that said, for whatever it is worth, as I look at my clock, I deem that it is now time to take a nap.