Retirement

I remember when my father took early retirement from the federal government, for which he had worked since the end of World War II. He had reached the highest civil service level he could. For a man who had no college degree, it was quite an achievement, but he was disappointed that he couldn't go higher. He was frustrated by his situation; his superiors were giving him less and less work to do. He had gone as far as he could go in the office--and now they wanted him to leave altogether. When the opportunity to retire came along--one of those budget-cutting actions--he took the package.

He was a young man--I think he must have been in his early fifties. Fortunately, my mother had begun a career in banking and was by then an officer. He could be a house-husband if he wanted to. For awhile he worked for a hardware store and then hooked up with H&R Block, doing "executive taxes" instead of sitting in a walk-in office. He enjoyed numbers and the job suited him. But he also did the cooking--he always loved to cook.

I think it was unsettling for me, when he retired, because everyone seemed worried he wouldn't do anything, that he would just sit around. He didn't. In our family you didn't just sit around.

I had my first job when I was fifteen, although I had worked previous years mowing lawns and babysitting. I'll be sixty-three this month--so I've been working in some way or another for fifty years. Most men my age would expect to work longer, perhaps until seventy. I'm too young to retire, just as my father was.

But this week I am retiring in one official way: as a deacon in the Episcopal Church. My wife and I will also start looking for a cheaper place than New York City to live. There is no doubt I will continue to work in some sense, as a consultant or in some little enterprise of my own. I don't plan to just sit around. But I don't plan to take another full-time job in a company (unless someone wants to make me an irresistable offer--always possible).

Being a deacon is an odd thing. Most deacons don't get paid. I am unusual in having worked in two jobs for the church in which I was classified and paid as clergy. So I have a clergy pension and can retire. Circumstances that I need not go into here make it necessary I do that.

It is an odd feeling, to retire. I will continue to behave as a deacon, particularly as I see my prophetic role as a writer and speaker--very much part of the diaconal calling. Once we move I may want to work in a parish (as a traditional deacon volunteer in parish life), but the truth is I need to rethink my role in this church. And the action of retirement will help me do that.

I had a letter this week from a deacon who was ordained when I was, nine years ago, reminding me and my fellow ordinands from that ceremony that our tenth anniversary is coming up. I spent almost as much time trying to become ordained as I've spent in a collar. Before ordination, one of the key questions is: Why do you think you need to be ordained? Now that I'm about to retire from active duty, as it were, I wonder if I did need to be ordained. What good did it do me or the church? (Other than the modest pension, which was an accident anyway--and not what I mean by the question.)

We don't become ordained for ourselves, of course. Especially deacons: there are not many personal advantages to being one. And yet ordination changes our lives, alters who we are. And if we are right in thinking we are called to ordination, it ought to change the church in some way.

I have a sense of being freed but I can't articulate what I mean by that yet. I only know that this week I am retiring and I don't plan to sit around and do nothing. I'm too young for that. But what has happened to the deacon, the guy who thought God was calling him, through the community of the church. to a particular service? What becomes of him and his vocation?