Had lunch with a recently-retired friend today and she asked for any advice I might have about retirement, about being retired. "Make your life your own," I told her. "Do those things that have meaning to you. Set your own agenda."
I've been thinking about those words ever since and am realizing that I am following my own advice by taking this trip to Africa. Since my retirement in 2002, life has been shaped by many things not really within my own control, but now, I am making deliberate choices, setting my own agenda, responding to the longings of my own heart; in the words of Joseph Campbell, I am "following my own bliss".
Now don't get me wrong: my life has not been on hold...I have been living fully, appreciating the wonders and blessings of the everyday and ordinary, of the gifts of my quirky home, of the healing and welcome presence of family and friends in my life. I have been writing and occasionally preaching and leading worship in various chuches around the Piedmont...and though my commitments and responsibilities here at home precluded travel since 2005, I have continued my personal spritual journey, continued to grow and become, to think and question, as my faith deepened and widened.
And now I'm ready to set out on an actual journey, to venture into parts of the world that are presently unknown to me, to gain the wisdom and knowlege which come only through experience. Being retired, you see, does not mean that life is over; in many ways, it means that life is really, truly beginning in a new and beautiful and challenging way. Here's to retirement! Here's to Life!
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