Purpose heh? (Part one of two)

Post-retirement is one of the major categories that any demographer would use to describe the chapters of my story currently being written. I consider myself still quite young in navigating the philosophical byways of these waters. It's been just over 2 years with the first 18 months of that time consisting of the shock and awe of finally breaking the tape of arriving at the end of the endless employment contests.  The more euphoric aspects initially present have faded. Hoping for a long road ahead, I find myself hunkering down and looking for the right mental/spiritual framework from which to proceed.

It is interesting to see all the many offers of advice when one does a search on 'finding purpose in retirement'. It's evident that it is of much interest and not hard to imagine that many must struggle with it in order to generate the volume of advice the internet offers. But what I am beginning to  wonder is that perhaps the whole purposefulness thing need not really be all that profound or complicated. Let's explore:

Purposefulness seems like it crops up as a potentially troublesome category more after one retires....not so much before.  And that my friends is what we in the business like to call a 'major clue'!  For if finding purpose is not as troublesome before retirement as it is after retiring we know what to focus on.  Mainly, what does retiring do in one's life to make 'purpose' a subject that so many are obviously searching on?

Well, dumbing it down to pure simplicity, all that has really changed in retirement is the cessation of "working for a living", of "career", of being a "working stiff".  And that says a lot.  If purpose was not such a big deal while we were working but now, after retirement, it becomes the subject of many people's Google searches, simple logic provides what to me seems somewhat amazing.  While we were working our sense of purpose at least seemed to be more or less fulfilled  from our working, from what we did for a living, what we did to support ourselves and our loved ones. While working, our life's purpose was not an itch looking to be scratched. But after we stop working suddenly we are all itchy? What's going on guys? (As my little grandson Gage would say.)

The honest truth is that our working seems to provide an easy, "low-hanging" kind of answer to our need for having purpose.  But really....should it?  Is not our life about much more than how we make our living?  I submit that the easy answer to this is "Yes, but it is often enough to lull us into feeling purpose-filled". I honestly have no recollection of hearing others lamenting about their lives lacking purpose when they were actively pursuing their Monday-Friday employment.  Maybe lamenting about the stress-filled treadmill of life but not their lack of a sense of purpose.  What up? What are the dynamics at work here?

Can't help but believe that the whole package of working for a living gives one a false illusion of purposefulness. The very act of going to bed, getting up, getting ready, driving through traffic and weather to get to work, going through the twists and turns of 8-10 hours of whatever someone is paying us to do, gritting our teeth at the antics of management, maneuvering through the social aspects of our workmates, looking forward to the weekend, going home and driving through the traffic and weather to return to our castles only to rinse and repeat five days a week seems to provide what suffices for a sense of purpose. Wow! Should it? I say neh, neh but it seems to work for most of us....

And now for a daring feat of logic. It stands to reason that if our working provided a false sense of purpose, our apparent loss of purpose when we stop working might just be an illusion as well.  Of course there is purpose in working but not so much that it deserves to be seen as the source of all purpose in our life. We work to provide and I am assuming that there is some means of provision after we stop working (or we wouldn't stop because we couldn't).  Regardless, the question remains: why does finding one's purpose often crop up as an issue after retiring?

Here is what I think.  The crazy busyness of life when working masks what really constitutes purpose. Being busy and "rowing the boat" (as PJ would say) seem to answer the question...but they really don't. Once we stop working we gain something that has been in short supply for so many years....time!  Time and the need to decide on how best to fill this time.  Not a category with which we have had much practice or experience.

So if all that has really changed after retiring is that it no longer takes 40 hours/week to make the nut, that our provision for life comes from another source which doesn't eat up much of the clock, we are finally free to see things for what they are.Scripture tells us believers that our purpose is to live "for the praise of his glory." To be image bearers of Christ, to embrace the cross, die to the selfish nature we have and surrender ourselves to the transforming work of Christ that we may better image bearers.

Our life's spiritual purpose has been meant for us from when we were first born, throughout each of our birthdays, throughout our working careers....it hasn't changed from day one! But with retirement, what does change is that the major distraction/mask of work/career ceases. We are left with an unobstructed opportunity to reassess our place on the map of life.  For me, the focus of my priorities seems quite clear.....and daunting.  Let's explore in part 2 of this effort.......

And we're back.....

The sojourn is crescendoing in new ways for me...this season of life marked by retirement from the daily grind of earning a living is beginning to grow legs. It all no longer feels quite as strange, The intentionality with which I make an effort to live by feels right and some payoffs are spitting out of the one-armed bandit of life.

Accidentally came across my blog recently while searching for something else.  Read a few of my posts and was struck by the value of laying down thought-tracks and their helpful perspective and orientation for my walk. Felt some call back to writing. Some thoughts on how writing can be one of the tools in my eternal purpose of ruling, reigning, having dominion over all Father brings me into. Writing as a form of naming, of bringing vague, ethereal thought-fragments into something more concrete, something that can be viewed, accepted or rejected by others, used as a sort of Reese's pieces trail to lend continuity to the earthly journey. Writing as a means to declare war on fuzziness. Not sure how original these thoughts are or am I just channeling Ann Vosskamp? Nonetheless, regardless of the source, it seems the right thing to pursue....

In my attempts to regain access to my own blog (no small thing for an increasingly forgetful boomer), I saw a draft section containing two drafts never posted, One contained some random thoughts for possible future exploration. First line said "always wanted a mentor". Wow, I now have a couple of newly-minted ones in the form of a spiritual director and a Camino mentor. Part of the crescendoing (possibly not an actual word but it should be) mentioned above. In my pursuit of increased intimacy with Christ I believe I may have some insight on something that is pertinent and potentially powerful for me. Let's explore:

In speaking with Steve, I heard myself describe some feelings of loneliness.  This feels troublesome. How can loneliness exist in the midst of dynamic family/church/social life? I am also reminded of being on a picnic with my then girlfriend and another couple and experiencing an acute attack of loneliness, a not belonging, not seeing them as truly relevant to me or my desire for connectedness. A very horrible feeling.....Not something I want lurking around the perimeters of my life. I see it as ever-so-threatening to undo, to lead me astray, to be tempt me with false lovers.  Really yucky stuff!

So here is today's attempt at naming what I perceive as some of the ingredients of loneliness in me. It revolves around being understood, being fully-grokked by another. Finding others who truly 'get me', in a perfect world who both understand and even appreciate my quirkiness. The insight I am tentatively holding on to follows....

Loneliness is real but for those who call themselves followers of Jesus it is a type of lie and agreement that our enemy can use as a crippling weapon against us. Loneliness presupposes that there is somebody or somebodies out there that will fill the aching void of being fully seen and understood. That is just not true...they are not there. Thinking such treasure is available sets me up for an expectation and longing for something the world cannot offer..My fallen nature and that of those around me produces a mostly thoroughly self-absorbed, self-focused community that can never fulfill my intense longings.

My desire to be known is even preposterous.  As though I can reasonably expect to find someone else that gets me deeply when I don't/can't get myself all that clearly.  Such a false expectation. Such a potential chronic trap designed to keep me whining and pining for something that is just not out there. Looking for love in all the wrong places was written by someone in some song.....

The antidote for all this loneliness talk is available/has been available all along. It's been hiding in plain sight! In my quest for greater intimacy with Christ I have somehow missed what could be said to be painfully obvious.  My Jesus knows me, gets me, totally understands me in the deepest ways I could ever imagine or hope for:

"For thou didst form my inward parts, thous didst knit me together in my mother's womb. Thou knowest me right well; my frame was not hidden from thee." Ps 139

My desire for another human to understand me at some profound level is doomed to ever be satisfied. Yet, if I am willing and allow my self to be abandoned to the provisions supplied by my Lord, I have every right to be expectant and confident that I am known by one in the very ways I have yearned for.

It is an extension of  the "....apart from me you can do nothing." of Jn 15:5. Apart from Jesus my search for another human(s) to thoroughly understand me is d.o.a. My focus has been so much on what I can only do in Christ, the fruit that only my abiding in him can produce. But this same abiding also brings me into intimacy with the one person in the universe who totally sees and understands how and why I do what I do. The one person who accepts me right where I am at the moment but who also offers healing, restoration, re-calibration....heck a complete re-wiring of all that is me.

But it is only available to the extent that I release my tight grip upon the controls of my life.  As I surrender my rights, my agenda, my methods and flop carelessly into his arms with no back-up plans in place. My desire to be radically understood is tied to my radical surrender of all approaches to fulfillment other than Christ. Nothing more but nothing less.....(Radical is as radical does...?)

And so all of this seems at once both profound and self-evident. I have been so intent in seeking deeper abiding so Jesus is free and has access to do in me what only he can do.  But he also brings fulfillment for my deepest desires and I must equally look to the Trinity to fill what no one else, no other thing can satisfy.  Thank you Father for letting me see this...whether for the first time or the tenth time I do not know but thank you. Let my desparateness drive me to you and you alone, forsaking all others.  Maranatha Lord Jesus!!

Santiago grateful and out....