Spirit-Flow in Retirement

by Mary Wood, Pinnacle Associate

Recently a friend asked me to share what it was like to be retired. “So far,” I told him, “It feels like one long vacation.” But that’s not really the case.

That provoking question further ignited me to dig deeper. (One good question asked by someone often does that, doesn’t it?) I asked myself again, Just what does it mean to be retired?

As I think about it, retirement is a time of leaving behind previous routines, schedules, and habits. It’s a time of letting go of what was known. It’s like a feeling that something is constantly missing but cannot be pinpointed. I remember one of the first Sundays I attended a church worship service as a retired minister. After the service, I stood in the foyer with a cup of coffee in my hand and said to myself, “Now what do I do? Well, I guess I’ll go home.” That feeling was a place I didn’t want to be. Uncomfortable. Out of sorts.

Last year, a friend who is also a Pinnacle Leadership Associate shared with me how surprised he was to experience a lot of low energy after retirement. He discovered he needed to take long naps in the afternoon. The emotional toll on all those goodbyes left him a bit drained. I was so glad he prepared me for that part of retirement. Although my social media page made it look like I was out of the gate in retirement enjoying trips and new adventures, no one was around to see me camped out in my comfy chair for hours at a time, napping and dead to the world.

That’s why I wanted to share my take on retirement with you. I found early on that it's hard to let go of a long career in ministry and simply step into a new role of retirement. It takes some grieving and uncomfortable letting go.

However, I have noticed something new brewing in me now. In fact, it just started to make sense this morning as I practiced something called automatic writing. I’ve been practicing this to listen to God. What happened today was all about intentionality.

Intentionality is what led me to consider what is important to me. What is it that I want to lean into? Through the practice of intentional listening, I’ve developed a mantra for retirement:

I am open to receive life, health, and mission that bring me the fullness of life.

Further intentions are:

I will embrace You, O God, with spiritual practices that bring joy.

I will commit myself to make mistakes and accept this as part of my journey.

Now, that’s basically it.

I’m a “list person,” meaning that I find satisfaction in making long lists to accomplish. Now that I’m retired, I’m basically tired of accomplishments. I want to focus more on “being” a person of faith. Although I have a long “to do” list in retirement, writing my intentions on paper has lightened the weight of getting those things done.

Retirement is more than a list to accomplish. It’s about something much more—much, much deeper. It’s about the part of ministry that I have avoided or neglected during my pastoral career because I was tending to the needs of others. It has to do with loving myself. “I love myself.” Now, say that ten times. “I love myself,” That right there is soul work. God so loved you… (John 3:16). God so loved me. Spending a career on loving others created little space for loving myself. I’m intentional in retirement to love myself.

This brings me to another intention. Making mistakes. Why would I want to intentionally hope to make mistakes in retirement? Piggybacking on the paragraph above, I’ll tell you in three words: I love myself. I love who I am, and I want to work on who I’m becoming. I love myself so much that I’m going to risk making mistakes along the way.

In my ministry years, it was expected to focus on God’s central commandment to love God, others and not so much myself. While I learn about how to do this well, I might as well give myself lots of permission to make mistakes as I learn.

Writing my intentions about what I want to lean into is helpful. This allows me not to obsess, fear or worry about “to do” lists or about the unknowns of retirement. Will I have enough? Do I have enough saved up? Is everything going to be okay if I retire first before my spouse retires? I’m simply finding my soul is sitting calmer with intentions over list-making—as stated above, not that I’m giving up on making lists. I’m a big list maker. However, inviting mantras to keep space in me has opened more space and energy to venture ahead.

Now, what if we consider the experience of retirement as it relates to the Church. Churches face the constant thought of “What’s next?” Some churches are extremely fearful of what’s next. “Will we be able to sustain ministry as it is today?” As realities are faced, what would happen if churches were more intentional about what they want? What do WE REALLY WANT? What if churches let go of the things they were worried about and just wrote down their deepest intentions? And then leaned into those intentions?

Churches, like individuals, families and communities, always experience change. My mother reminded me often that change was part of the human experience. I still hear her voice say to my fearful self after I graduated from high school. “Mary, life is about change. Your life will have many more changes after this.” In other words, she was telling me to keep going.

With changes occurring at warp speed in our lives, the capacity to flow with God’s generative Spirit should seem unlimited for churches. Although it should be exciting for churches to cross the sea on dry land as Moses did with the Israelites, for most churches, it’s less risky to sink feet into the muddy shores of last year’s scheduled events than attempt to cross into freedom. However, with God’s help (and maybe the assistance of a church consultant or trained coach from Pinnacle Leadership Associates), freedom is whatever we intend it to be.

Instead of business as usual, let’s take a journey to the fullness of life. What if we created space to grieve what was, and then create space to dream about a full life? What would that life look like? What if you (or your church) intentionally wrote what you wanted to lean into? How would you lean into a life full of joy?

Remember, the fullness of life requires suffering as well as joy. I’ll write more about that next time.

For now, I’ll just remind that without intentionality, the movement of the Spirit could be hindered in your life or the life of your church. How might you (or your church) open yourself to embrace the wonderful opportunities of a full life of grace and resurrection?

—Rev. Dr. Mary Wood is a Pinnacle Leadership Associate. She recently retired from a career in pastoral ministry. She is a Pinnacle trained coach and church consultant. She uses a tool called Appreciative Inquiry to individuals and churches find their next step. For further inquiry, Mary can be contacted at Pinnacle Leadership Associates.