What’s A Retirement For?

What’s a retirement for? A time to drop out, take the deserved break? A little more “me” time? I can’t help but wonder. Maybe instead it’s an opportunity to show up during the great crises of our time. Just as we are in the midst of the retirement rush with boomers now aging beyond the career years, we could find, if it is so willed, that those with careers completed, family raised, homes paid off or near, and the anxieties and stresses of youth and middle age declining, there is before us an invitation to bring the lessons of a lifetime to the cultural/societal/political/spiritual arenas.

The new rage is to de-platform others by threatening their careers, finances, and reputations if they take a stand against the mob. It’s enough to break most people as they withdraw from the public sphere under the threat. Too much to loose. But it’s harder to carry out those threats against the retired. Yes, they have some things to loose, but less than those in the midst of building a future. I would think those with less to lose ought to be among the first of the volunteers.

There are a lot of us boomers, and we bear a lot of the burden for what is happening now. Our decisions, our values, our politics have born their fruit. We will live longer than any other generation, and therefore will face like no other generation the cultural consequences that an earlier death spared those who have preceded us. It seems to me that this brings a duty.

Most of us have some extra time, the miracle of modern healthcare, and hopefully some means to take our place on the ramparts. Why not pick our spot? Why not help the cause we believe in?

I have posted this video before, a seven minute portion of sermon delivered by John Piper in 2000 to a massive crowd of collegians. It is his most famous sermon, referred to as “The Sea Shell” sermon. It reminds them that it is the whole life that they have been called to give, not just a portion of it. It is difficult to recall how many times I have listened to it when I get weary, there’s too much to do, and the contribution I make so feeble.