Countdown to Retirement: A Meditation

Last updated on: June 15, 2015 at 6:44 am by James Ford

Countdown to Retirement: A Meditation 2015-06-15T06:44:08-07:00 James Ford

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Last year a friend put a counter on my computer he labeled “countdown to retirement.” I figured as he was a prominent Zen teacher, it must be okay. Well, maybe not fully okay. On the one hand I didn’t like anything that could feel like wishing away my life. I’ve never seen much profit in living too far out into the future. On the other hand, it is such a significant marker in the cycles of my life, looking every once in a while and seeing how that calendar stands brought with it a small thrill.

For those early months I rarely looked at it, mostly only when going to the application where it was stored with a calendar I occasionally checked, or the calculator I even more rarely used. I would notice, and fritter away a few moments thinking abstract thoughts about that magical word “retirement.”

Of course, what that was supposed to mean has changed over the year since I announced I would be leaving as senior minister of the First Unitarian Church of Providence. At the time it meant I would put down the parish minister part of my life, and when we got to Long Beach I would focus on writing and tending to a new Zen sangha we assume we will start.

As Jan & I have started Zen sanghas everywhere we’ve lived for the past thirty years, no doubt that will happen one more time. But, then I began to think about my writing. For the past fifteen years I’ve been able to crank out a book every three years. Pretty much like clockwork. My method however, has been to write through theft. I am, for instance, supposed to be working on a sermon. At that magical moment I find the current book project totally and completely fascinating, and steal a couple of minutes to work on it. Turns out the words accumulate fast that way. And then, within the rhythms of a Unitarian Universalist parish ministry life, I would have a month every summer where I could focus on putting the words together and massage them into something beginning to look like a manuscript. Now, critical to that summer project was the ending, the fact there was a deadline. One wag observed I would likely still be rewriting my first sermon if a Sunday hadn’t rolled around. I write by fear. I need deadlines looming.

And, I began to realize in full retirement I wasn’t looking at many deadlines. So, I let the people who make decisions about such things know that I would be open to a less than full time, temporary job as a UU minister in California, so long as it was close enough to our condo in Long Beach that I could spend my nights at home. So, in September I will begin serving as the three-quarter time interim minister at the Pacific Unitarian Church in Rancho Palos Verdes, about half an hour from our home.

For me it means a little structure to my time. (Well, maybe quite a bit. There’s a bit of conventional minister wisdom that says there is in fact no such thing as part time ministry, only part time pay for ministry…) That said a paycheck for a while longer doesn’t hurt. And, while I’ve been too focused on my work in Providence to give it much attention, and won’t yet, until we get to California in about two weeks, the particular problems that PUC are experiencing are problems I think I have skills to be helpful addressing. And even here launched into our long anticipated holiday drive home from the East, I on occasion am rolling particular issues around in the back of my head.

So, given the givens. That I haven’t actually left parish ministry as of yet, that I continue to write (I actually am in rewrites at the moment for my next book with Wisdom, and have an ms being shopped with an agent), and that I cannot see the end of working with a Zen sangha, what actually is the word retirement supposed to mean?

Now, over the past several months, particularly when we left the apartment, and then spent a month in a friend’s house, and then another couple of weeks at a Zen temple while I was still working at Providence, I admit I went back to that counter a number of times, and not to look at the calendar or calculate a date. I remember when the counter announced one month. And then two weeks. And, then the thrill when it hit single digits.

At some point my current life, the past that led to it, and the future with its mysterious possibilities began to blur. I’m always retiring from something. I’m always embarking on something. And the joy of it is within the tension where those things meet.

It reminded me that those who think living in the moment means being oblivious to the past or the future are missing the point. The reality for us as temporal beings is that we are not solid fixed things, rather we are dynamic and open, our reality bleeds into the past, and it bleeds into the future.

Now is a state of mind.

Living too far out into the past, too much into the future is unbalanced. But, not being aware of that past is in fact dangerous. And not having some sense of future creates a static existence, a tape loop of repetition, without the possibility of change.

Now is delicious, and to be fully engaged.

And it is a bit of a fiction. Just as we’re conscious of this moment, it is gone.

Just this, and passing, passing. One thing. One wildly open and dynamic thing.

And so, here I am, sitting in a motel in New Haven, a cup of coffee at hand, the morning light beginning to pour into our room.

My past, not some general past, my past, so rich, filled with too much sadness, and filled with so many joys, and flooding memories of these past weeks in particular as I’ve come to the end of such an important part of my life, leaving not only the church that has meant so much to me, but also the core Zen community that has given me more than words can ever convey, and which from now on will be a continent away, and, now, also in this now, I glance over at Jan still sleeping, and I find the rush of excitement as I consider our adventures awaiting us.

Here.

And, I find it all so wonderful.

And I find I’m so grateful.

For it all…

Uncategorized

Previous Post

June 14, 2015

THE THIRD SERMON A Meditation on a Preaching Ministry

Next Post

June 17, 2015 Bishop Hodur's Cathedral

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category A Christmas Carol Abolitionist African-American Ahmadiyya Alan Watts Aldous Huxley Allen Ginsberg Amedkar Jayanti American politics American Zen Anaheim Zen Sangha Anglican Annie Besant April Fool Armageddon Art and Religion artificial intellegence Atheist Awakening B R Ambedkar Barlaam & Josaphat Beatnik Between Bhagavad Gita Bible biography birthday bodhisattva Bodhisattva Precepts Book burning Book of Common Prayer Book of Mormon Brahmo Samaj Buddha Buddhism Buddhist Buddhist Lord's Prayer Butterflies Calendars cartoons cat ChatGPT Chicken Tortilla Soup choices Christian atheism Christian mysticism Christian origins Christian Science Christian Zen Christianity Christianity and Buddhism christmas Christmas Truce Christopher Isherwood Church of Later Day Saints Cinco de Mayo circus covenant critical thinking culture D. T. Suzuki Dalit Buddhism Daniel Defoe Desert Fathers and Mothers dharma talk Dogen Donald Trump Dongshan's Five Ranks Dorothy Day dream Duty Easter ecology Edwin Arnold emptiness Empty Moon Zen Network Episcopal Church Eternal Now Ethics evolution existentialism Faith fantasy Fathers Day film film review fire Five Ranks Folk music food Form and emptiness Four Seals Francis of Assisi Francis Xavier Free thinker friendship George MacDonald Gerald Heard Glenn Taylor Webb God Good Friday Gospel of Gospel of Mark Gospel of Thomas grace Graduate Theological Unioin Graduate Theological Union Guanyin H R Blyth Hakuin Ekaku Hanamatsuri Hanukkah Harada Yasutani Zen Heart Sutra Henry David Thoreau Hermann Hesse Hinduism History and Religion history of religion Holy Spirit home Hospitality Icon Ides of March Isaac Newton Islam Islamic mysticism Jack Kerouac James Luther Adams Jiddu Krishnamurti Joan of Arc Johannes Gutenberg John Donne joke Judaism justice karma kensho King James Bible koan Koun Yamada Kyoto School Lewis Carrol Liberal Christianity Liberal Religion Life Plan Community Liminal literature Literature and Religion Liturgy Lord's Prayer Love Mahatma Gandhi Mahayana Martin Luther King Jr Mary Baker Eddy Mary Magdelene Mary Oliver Mayflower Compact Meditation memories memory metaphor money money and religioin Mormons Mother's Day movie review mysticism mythic Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church New Thought Nichiren Buddhism Nonduality not knowing Omar Khayyam Pacific School of Religion pagan Palm Sunday Passover peace Pentecost perennialism Phantastes Philip Kapleau philosophy Pilgrimage poetry Poetry and Religion politics Prayer Precepts Printing Press prophecy prophetic spirituality psychology Pure Land Queer religion queering religion Quietism Ram Mohan Roy rebirth recipe Relationships and religion religion religion and history Religious syncretism Resistance Retirement Retreat review Rissho Kosei Kai Ritual Robert Aitken Roshi Robert Ingersoll Rohatsu Romani religion Rosie the Riveter saints samadhi SanboZen Sangha Satyagraha science science and reigion science and religion science fiction seminary sermon Sesshin Sex and Religion Shinran Sikh Sikh tradition silence Social Justice Socially Engaged Buddhism Society and religion Soto Zen soul spiritual community spiritual practice Spirituality Sufism Suicide superstition Taoism Television Teresa of Avila Thanksgiving theological schools Theosophy Thomas Merton Time Transcendentalism Transcendentalist Trinitarian Trinity Uncategorized unitarian Unitarian Christianity Unitarian Universalist Universalism Vajrayana Vedanta Walking war Willa Cather William Ellery Channing wisdom women and religion women in religion World Teacher Writing zazen Zen Zen Center Zen inspired retriement zen meditation Zen Precepts Zen women

Select a Month September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

According to James, what happens when sin is full-grown?

Select your answer to see how you score.

It hardens the heart It destroys faith It gives birth to death It separates from God