Retire: to withdraw, to go away or apart, to a place of abode, shelter or seclusion.
This is the definition of retire in my dictionary. It is a rather old fashioned definition as in “the ladies will retire to the drawing room.” Today, in USA culture at least, it has come to mean to stop working for living. For many it does mean to withdraw from the work that we have been doing for many years. For some it does mean to move away to a place where we have always envisioned living “in retirement” where they can be warm, or fish, or do whatever avocation they aspire to. However the definition implies an isolation that I don’t think most of us intend when we retire.
Two weeks ago I announced my retirement effective January 8, 2012. I’ve known for at least a year that it was time to retire and had been pondering when exactly to do the deed. The date is about a month before my 66th birthday the time that Social Security has determined I can take my full portion it for those born in the year 1946. So it is done. The letter went out and now everyone knows what Bruce and I have known for several months.
Like any major life transition it comes with a certain amount of ambivalence and anxiety. I’ve been a minister for a long time, 40 years to be exact. I know how to do this work. I know how my life gets shaped around it. While I look forward to not having to get up and be “at work” six days a week, I don’t know how life will shape itself without it. Like any freedom, there are costs and gains associated with it. While this will amuse most of you who read this, one of the losses for me will include not being able to pick the hymns on Sunday. I will have to sing what other people pick. I love so many of the hymns and many that don’t appear on other’s top 20 lists. Will I ever get to sing them again in community?
Through these years of ministry I’ve watched others retire and know it is something that has to be learned through trial and error. We will need to sell our house, downsize and move to where we think we want to live. These are all major decisions and will take some time to accomplish before the everydayness of retirement can actually set in.
Retirement means giving up a certain identity one has had and to forge a new one or to lift up to more prominence parts of the self that have had to take a lesser role in the self. For me I think the freedom to have time for family and friend relationships will be central as well as time to sing with a group on a regular basis.
Retiring like every life transition is bittersweet. It will mean leaving a congregation I’ve come to know and care for. It will mean letting go of relationships which have meant a lot to me so that another minister can become the central figure in the life of the congregation. It means giving up an identity that has been central through 40 years of adult life. Who will I be when I’m not “the pastor?”
Like all the other transitions of my life, I know these things will sort themselves out if I can patiently live into them and not just worry about them in the middle of the night. In the meantime, I’m still working until January 8, 2012!
