The question is somewhat academic.  

I am 64.  

In fact I am much closer to 65 than 64 and that is why, earlier this week I found myself applying to receive superannuation. Those who are about to become superannuated  need to do this.  

I had to provide at least three items of proof as to who I was, fill out a long and complicated
form online that had me scurrying for long forgotten details of salary and net worth and then appear in person to convince someone that what I had written down was in fact true.

It was a long and complicated process, not helped by the fact that I answered one question wrongly. 

 

“Do you want your partner to be included in this application?”  the form asked.

As we have a joint bank account which gives Frances permission to spend all my money anyway I naturally answered “yes” only to be told that  “no” was the correct response.  She had to fill out her own application (and presumably answer the same question that I had answered wrongly).

Some 30 minutes later, all was done and I was officially on the department’s books as a “soon to be” genuine superannuitant, aka “old age pensioner”.  I felt duly gratified that, despite not having attained a perfect score at answering all questions correctly, I at least had “passed”.

I thought that growing old was something that just simply happened to one as a matter of course.  I now know that it is not that easy and forms have to be filled in and duly signed and the government has to affirm that you have indeed got older and reached 64 (about to turn 65).

I have been searching the scriptures to find out what God’s retirement plan consists of.  So far I have only found references to “eternal life”.

Martin Luther’s friend Johann von Staupitz once told him “God has plenty of work in heaven”, so while I am coming to terms with a new phase of life it seems there will be no let up.

Just so long as I have no more forms to fill in.

I used to smile at my father-in-law’s lists.  It seemed that for every planned activity he engaged in, he made a list and when he died and we came to clear out his house we were greeted with large numbers of miscellaneous lists ranging from mundane ordinary day-to-day activities to important lists of material that he was currently working on (he was an archaeologist).  He was meticulously organised, and me, I just smiled. Who needed lists? 

There was nothing wrong with my memory and I did not need to be reminded of priorities that were perfectly obvious anyway.  

Now I am ‘retired’ I have had to revise my somewhat cynical opinions on list-makers.  I have found that I have joined their number. I admit it.  I need lists.

When you have a job that requires you to keep hours, appointments and has regular tasks you probably don’t need lists unless there is something unexpected or out of the ordinary that is going to change your routine. But now I find that I have no regular, well-defined routine. Most days have nothing particular scheduled and the day’s ‘diary’ is blank as it were.  And I have found a non-too-subtle tendency to end up at the end of the day saying, “What have I really done, today?”  

And I remember the time that I have spent that day achieving … well … nothing in particular.  Not that I feel I always have to achieve something, but I have found there is a tendency, if there is not a clearly defined task or objective to simply waste time and finish the day thinking, “Well, what have I achieved today?”

I am not a particularly “driven” person, but I do hope that I am at least  purposeful one. Living life aimlessly finds me getting frustrated and discouraged, and asking myself “what’s the point?”  I want to do more than “measure out my life with coffee spoons”, in T.S. Eliot’s memorable phrase.

These last few weeks have certainly faced me up with some challenges. 

 

“Teach us to realise the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom”, (NLT) the psalmist tells us.

I need to ask for wisdom as to how to use the time and resources that I have been given.  I may not need a list (though that might just help to keep me focussed), but I do need to ask God what is the best use of my time.  There are just so many things to do …

Now, I’ll just go and make a list …

O let me see thy footmarks,
and in them plant mine own;
My hope to follow duly
is in thy strength alone.

 Retirement, I have discovered, presents one with more opportunities – and more decisions.  The new journey has certainly begun, but the day to day dynamics of living out that journey have changed.

Now, at the beginning of each day, there is considerably more freedom to make decisions of how that day is going to be spent.  Familiar routines and expectations that came with a job no longer exist –  one is suddenly facing daily choices of how to spend the hours of each day.   And that sort of choice brings much responsibility.

I find myself writing lists of tasks “to do” (and often feeling somewhat overwhelmed, if I am honest).  I have yet to run out of ideas.  I am also aware that I can now spend my time quite selfishly, doing what I want to without any other consideration.

And, when I reflect, I am drawn back to the words quoted above – familiar (perhaps too much so) words of a hymn often sung all too glibly.

My time, my energy, my life is not ultimately my own.  All are God’s gifts and the use of them is a privilege that I am gifted to be able to use. Not, ultimately, for my own selfish ends, but to God’s plan and purpose.

That’s why I have called this blog “Footmarks”.  I have started another stage of the journey, pilgrimage, if you like, and I am still following the one who leads: Jesus.

I am notoriously clumsy.  I have often to “watch my feet” which have a tendency to trip over anything and everything that is underfoot.  The secret, of course, is to watch ahead, to tread in the prepared places where Jesus has gone before.  Not that there will be journeys without challenges, dangers, even,  but if I know that I place my footmarks in his I am headed in the right direction.

It’s time to step out!

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”  So goes the cliché, but like all clichés, there is a kernel of underlying truth.  Today, I have been reminded of this.

Today I am now officially redundant, and this is the first day of my enforced retirement.  With only three months to go until I officially reach ‘the age’ it is improbable that I will start looking for another job and I have realised for some time that I need to take a break – a holiday that is somewhat overdue.  And what I have been aware of for the last three months has now become a reality.  I woke up this morning and everything had changed – or so I thought.  No more work. 

Retirement.

  

And it starts now!

During the course of parish farewells, I received a card from some of my parishioners (I was an Anglican vicar).  In it, one person wrote, reminding me that there was no such a person as a retired Christian.  I had to agree. How can there really be retirement if we believe in eternal life?  There may well be seasons we pass through in our life, but our relationship with God does not suddenly cease: we are still his child, he is still our Father.

The psalmist David wrote

    Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord.
    Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly.  (Psalm 5:3 NLT)

It is a timely reminder.  I need to keep to the familiar and beneficial routines that have undergirded my life up till now.  I need, even more than ever, to start each day with God: prayer, Bible reading, reflection, and, as David reminds us a time of bringing my requests before God and waiting … expectantly waiting. 

 

In the past much of my life had been quite predictable in the tasks that lay before me.  Parish life had its tasks and rhythms and although there was often the unexpected there were was an underlying order and routine

.

Now, I am retired but nothing really has changed fundamentally, except that the rhythms of life will be different and the tasks change.  Whatever each day will bring, I will need God go before me and with me (behind me, too, covering up my mistakes!).  That will never change.

 

Each day there will be a new expectancy of what God has in store.  

Let the journey begin!