‘Seasons will pass you by,
I get up, I get down’
Yes ‘Close to the Edge’ on the album ‘Close to the Edge’ (1972)
I posted a blog on ‘Seasons’ a few years back. In that post I reflected on how I was entering into the final phase of my full-time Ministry and how I felt about it. I also mentioned that, in looking forward to retirement, some folks spoke about a new chapter in life, but that for me it was more like a new season.
I have now been ‘retired’ for just over two years. I put ‘retired’ in inverted commas, as I don’t think I will ever fully retire from Ministry. Currently, I find myself serving as a ‘Locum’ which takes up two days a week plus the Sunday service.
But things have definitely changed, slowed down, moved into a new phase, and at a different pace. As I anticipated a couple of years ago, it does feel like a new season.
Retirement is part of that, but so is being a grandparent. That has definitely changed perspectives and felt like a new ‘season’!
However, one other thing (pretty much unique to the experience of Ministers) is that, being retired, we only now own and live in our own home. Now, of course, over the years of Ministry we have had homes! But they have been owned by our respective congregations. We have also owned properties over the years, but these have not been our homes in which we have lived. For this first time, as retired people, we own the home in which we live. And that is a great feeling!
The drawback is that, given our age and stage, we want to get the house and garden sorted pretty quickly and are expending rather a lot of time, and energy, and money doing so. We are aware that this season of life is not going to go on forever. We do not have the luxury of several decades stretching ahead of us in which we can gradually get home and garden as we would like!
But that is ok.
And, in fact, the reason I began this post was because I have been reflecting on how content I have become in this new season. The experiences of retirement, grandparenthood, and living in our own home will all be part of this. But whatever the reasons, contentedness is not a quality I (or those close to me) would have previously attributed to me!
But I do feel very content, and at peace with life, and deeply grateful. While I am more than aware that this new season will not go on forever (and I am very aware that the years pass ever more swiftly), it remains a time of peace, contentedness, mellowness, and gratitude.
I feel less urgency about achieving, acquiring, experiencing, or striving. I have already done much, seen much, experienced much and achieved much. I am content (there’s that word again!) to look back on much of that with gratitude and happily settle into this new season.
The Apostle Paul once wrote; ‘I have learned to be content’ (Philippians 4: 11).
Perhaps I too am learning that secret.
