This summer, in fact, this coming week, marks the fifth anniversary of my retirement. Also, the fiftieth anniversary of my entry into full-time ministry. I’ve been thinking about retirement, its meaning and its purpose. Today I continue with Part 4 of a four-part series:
- Retirement as a gift from God
- Retirement as a gift for others
- Retirement as a call to look forward
- Retirement as a time to look back
(As I wrote in the first post, I should acknowledge that my retirement is pretty traditional. Five years ago, I quit receiving a paycheck, moved out of my office, and was no longer bound to a position description and job expectations. In those five years our retirement income has proven to be more than adequate, my health is good, and my energy level is high. We also moved 600 miles from the place we had called home to a new house and home we enjoy greatly. I understand that some people cannot afford to retire, and others enter retirement with regrets and worries of different sorts. So, as I think about retirement, most of the data comes from my own good experience and from conversations and observations from those around me. I will cite no studies and offer no footnotes.)
4. RETIREMENT AS A TIME TO LOOK BACK
Several of you have been kind enough to respond to these posts with reflections and insights from your own retirements. Thank you.
In the first post I said, “there is no place in retirement for clinging to the past or longing for the way things were.” Agreeing with my thought, a friend nevertheless recalled the joy and satisfaction he felt recently in cleaning out the attic and coming across various reminders of past events and accomplishments. “They brought back some wonderful memories of times and of people that I hadn’t thought about for many years,” he wrote.
There is a difference between nostalgia, an always unsatisfied hunger for something that never satisfies, and the memories that remind us of who we are. Nostalgia seeks to return to the past. Good memories encourage us in the present and offer direction for the future.
Like my friend’s attic, my study is filled with reminders of things past, from California to Pennsylvania, North Philadelphia to Brazil and Guatemala, family and friends and the places we lived.
This coming Tuesday will be a day of quiet celebration for me. July 1 will mark 50 years since I began full-time ministry as the youth director at First Presbyterian Church in Santa Cruz, California. Five years since retirement from Langhorne Presbyterian Church in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. Becky and I became partners in this adventure nearly 48 years ago, and what an adventure it has been. Santa Cruz and Oakhurst, California. Lake Oswego, Oregon, Richmond, Virginia. Menominee, Michigan, and Beaver and Langhorne, Pennsylvania. And now Auburn, Indiana. Three wonderful children and children in-law, nine precious grandchildren, and scores of amazing friends.
And those adventures. I won’t bore you with the stories but to say that the God who was with us every cold stride up Heart Attack Hill on that cross-country ski trek to Ostrander Ski Hut in the back country of Yosemite National Park; the God who used our broken Portuguese and feeble attempts to care in Favela da Ventosa; the God who allowed me to preach from the pulpits in San Luca Toliman, Guatemala, and Ossian, Indiana – that God of wondrous love has been our help in ages past and is our hope for years to come.
Retirement? A gift from God. A gift for others. A call to look forward. A time to look back.