How is retirement? - Good and bad

 I have so many people when they first see me ask this question, “How is retirement?”  I have only been retired 16 days! … and even then I have had a funeral and have been sorting through “work” stuff.  But let me share current feelings with you. Retirement, even if it is looked forward to involves grief and one of the “stages” of grief is anger.  Mixed in with all the feelings of retirement I am also dealing with feelings of anger.

Retirement is good – I am finding that I am sleeping very soundly. Over recent years I have been waking in the early hours and have had my mind going flat tack for several hours before dozing off again, if I got to doze off at all. Since retirement happened I have been sleeping well. I played around with a blood pressure monitor a couple of days ago and I am sure my blood pressure has dropped considerably.  I have been doing various projects and chores around the house. Whenever I did projects before I had but one day a week to complete them in, so I worked always in a rushed manner. I found myself working at the same frenzied pace with projects since retirement, then I would pull myself together and say to myself, “You have tomorrow and the next day to do this. Slow down and enjoy doing it at a more relaxed pace!”

Retirement sucks. –  I drove away from the Lookout Point fire station the other day and automatically set a course for my office at the Church. It was a habit of many years… finish chaplaincy and head back to the office before heading home. Part way there I remembered… I have no office in town now! On the light side I have no free park, coffee making facilities and toilet available in the centre of the city – retirement means I have lost those perks. But the day I put my Church keys in the Church safe and left the building for good I was sad.

•   I had enjoyed an office in town with a computer, printer and photocopier, which has been a centre for a lot of work for the Church, Habitat for Humanity and for the Dunedin Night Shelter Trust. It was a place where people from my chaplaincies, drop-in centre, Habitat, Night Shelter Trust, church members, or people from the community could call in, have a cup of tea and have access to me.  There I have counselled, listened to marriage woes, discussed wedding plans, offered support, built relationships and planned projects. It was a base for good in the centre of the city. I will miss that.
• As I looked at the Church building, I thought about the many relationships established there. No longer would I play table tennis, hug John, joke, encourage, scold, and tease my friends at the drop-in centre. I have enjoyed building friendships with people on the edges of Church life, at Space2B, new folk in the congregation, users of the building and others.  Through this building and my work I have continued relationships with Church members, many I have known since my childhood. I will miss these in a profound way.
•   I will no longer enjoy the creative buzz of crafting a Church service, bringing together music, film clips, prayers and reflections so that they communicate in an interesting way.  I will miss that.
•    I had a dream of slowly building a different model of Church, a creative community centre that fudged the lines between Church and Community. We went part of the way toward that, but the job seemed unfinished.

As I drove away I thought of all the good things I would miss about being a minister and I was sad. I was part of a force for good in the middle of the city. Through this institution and these buildings I expressed myself and my passions.  I can look back with pride. But… there is a sense in which I ask, “Who am I now?”

Then I asked myself, “If it was so good, why am I retiring? Why not continue doing the good there?”

Here is my answer…

•        I am 65 and for years I have worked 6 days a week and been on call 24/7. It is time to have more free time to explore different things life has to offer. I owe it to myself, my wife and my family.
•        My denomination has changed. Change is a must and inevitable, but I happen to think some important emphases have been lost and some destructive approaches adopted. When a minister can no longer feel good about his denomination it is time to find another job. .. I have grown weary of the battle.
•          My dream for the Church and my concept of “Church” is very different than the traditional and even contemporary “imperialistic” views of the Church. There is always going to be frustration and uneasiness between “normal” church people and leaders and me. I have grown weary of the battle.
•         As part of this tension there were a couple of people in different leadership positions that I found hard to work with.  I found it difficult to find a forum to talk the issues through. Also we found that while the general congregation, allowed me to do different stuff, there was not a heap of people willing to really get involved in the work.  (even 27 years ago when they were much younger.) I used to laugh. Many would say with pride, “We are a community minded Church!” Under my breath I would say, “Well no - there are a few of us busting our gut to be a community minded Church – most are passengers.” – I have grown weary of the battle.
•         I hate the organ. I found that I was increasingly repulsed by its sound and there was an unwillingness to change. (A survey showed 95% of NZ’ers dislike organ music) I felt it’s heaviness and dominance caused harm to the atmosphere I was trying to create in worship … I have grown weary of the battle. (Having said that I attended a worship service on Sunday with an organ. It was there, assisted the singing well but was almost beautifully unnoticed because of the sensitive way it was played. – In my view musical instruments whatever your choice, in worship are meant to be like a referee in rugby, he is there doing an important job, but not dominating the play.)

     I could go on or go into more detail, but that is enough negativity. I became a minister largely because I perceived a gap between the Church and real life for people in the community. I have a book entitled, “The reality of the world and the unreality of the Churches.” The title expresses my concern.  I am pleased to say that we bridged that gap in all sorts of ways. While I would have dearly wished for more, I am pleased with what we achieved. In the final half of my career I was exploring and trying to get the Church to focus on the servant ministry of Jesus in the community. I wanted us to ask the question, “What does it mean for us as followers of Jesus to express our following as a group?”  The default questions seem to be “how do we survive/grow as an institution?” – These are very different issues so it was always going to be a battle. Over all there has been little conflict, mainly because I tried to take frustratingly small steps toward change, and, perhaps because I am a coward, I avoided conflict and most often bit my tongue and seethed inside. – but the changes have not been enough, the job is unfinished and … I have grown weary of the battle.

I guess others will have different viewpoints on my career, and I am deeply aware I have many weaknesses and failings.

Revisiting trauma - We have received a few phone calls from a church leader seeking information. Sometimes in conversation people want to discuss our Church. At the moment, in spite of all the good things we enjoyed in ministry, when such conversation happens it is like the opening up of old wounds, or revisiting a traumatic experience. I avoid even driving past the building. Anger and sadness emerges within me. That is part of the grieving process and it will change.

Henri Nouwen wrote a book about “ministry” appropriately entitled “The wounded healer.” A sentence from that indicates a feeling I have often had in my forty years of church ministry.  “Many Churches decorated with words announcing salvation and new life are often little more than parlours for those who feel comfortable in the old life, and who are not likely to let any words change their stone hearts into furnaces where swords can be cast into plough shares, and spears into pruning hooks.”