Last Tuesday, I began to announce my pastoral retirement. We put a letter to the congregation in the mail on the previous evening. Then I announced verbally to a gathering of church leaders. Many may have seen it coming, but were in suspended disbelief.
Of course. It is my retirement, not theirs. And I've been plotting it, even rehearsing it, for a couple of years.
The church will be fine. There is a long runway of nine months before I hang up my pulpit gown on April 15. The board will establish a transition team in the fall. They will ask me to give them a brain dump of things I know and do. An interim job description will be crafted and a transitional minister will be recruited. There is already a shift in the wind. That's OK.
And I will be fine, too. My work with late career clergy for the denomination's CREDO program has helped me imagine a post-congregational life. I will begin with a six month sabbatical from church work, breaking it only briefly to help out a couple of colleagues. Frankly, I need the head space. My brain is prone to clutter.
One of the curious gifts of the last month has been new correspondence with a notable author. She found my Thriving on a Riff book somehow, expressed appreciation, and reached out to encourage me to keep writing. It was stunning - she won a Pulitzer Prize for one of her novels! Yet I must confess to her that my head is too full to imagine writing another book. The brain dump is in order. Spaciousness must be claimed.
Not that the future is an empty canvas. My musical adventures will continue. I will reinvest in my relationships with the people who are God-given gifts. Appropriate friendships will continue and wider friendships will develop. There are recipes to try and a thinner waistline to pursue. Just to name a few.
Meanwhile the news is out. The milkweed has left the pod. I'll be using this blog as a way to narrate where the seeds are landing.
