Ten years ago today, I preached my last sermon at St. Matthew’s Cathedral, Brandon, handed my keys back to the churchwardens, enjoyed a lovely lunch and party with the parish, and then walked away from more than a quarter-century of full-time ordained ministry. The memory of that day has dimmed a bit, but I do remember some feelings — a strange mixture of joy, relief, sadness, and some anxiety and fear.
The years since then have been a whole other adventure, as I became used to being one of those people who are paid not to work, otherwise known as the retired. I have learned to enjoy having the time to do just what I want to do — and also not do what I don’t want to do. A friend said a few years ago “I thought you were retired. You always seem so busy.” “True,” I said, “but I’m as busy as I want to be.” In stipendiary ministry, the busyness of life comes from external, job-related pressures. In retirement, any busyness is my choice. In this time, I have taken on various commitments voluntarily, and have enjoyed working at most of them. Things which no longer gave pleasure could easily be walked away from, as I have done a couple of times.
I have fewer commitments now than I did five years ago, but they are all things that give me life, keeping my mind and body active and engaged. Health considerations aside, life is pretty good as I mark this anniversary, and face a milestone birthday in a couple of weeks.
But those feelings…
There was joy, especially in the way the congregation expressed their gratitude for my ten and a half years among them. Parting can be sorrowful, but in this case it was sweet sorrow. I left knowing that my work had been mostly well received, and I could walk out with head held high.
There was relief, because most of the pressures I had felt in that position, especially in my final year, were being taken away. I could hand off the problems to someone else!
There was sadness, because we were moving far enough away to make continued relationships with many people I had come to treasure very difficult to maintain. This was the sorrowful aspect of parting.
There was anxiety and fear, because I was moving into a wholly new phase of my life, and I was quite unsure about how that would work out. I’m not a person who deals well with surprises, so we had made reasonable plans, but I was well aware that these plans could come unstuck in the twinkling of an eye.
But over-riding all of that was the sense that I had followed God’s call to that place, striven to serve to the best of my abilities there, and was now following God’s call to a new place.
I haven’t achieved most of the projects I had envisioned for retirement, but that doesn’t matter. I am still trying to follow the call day by day in this adventure we call life. As it has been said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”
And now onward, to wherever God may lead.
Into the blue... 