On The Way Home: Good News for the Retired & Retiring
Good News for the Retired and soon-to-be Retiring …
“On the Way Home” is the name of a popular Neil Young song from the late 1960′s – a light-hearted song of someone who’s joyfully anticipating wonderful things as s/he arrives back at the place where s/he belongs – a place called “home.” The lyrics speak of an insanely beautiful dream of a time and a place – and people – who will make one’s life feel full and complete. For a lot of our friends who are retiring, life has been good, and there’s no reason to expect anything to change anytime soon. Even with this, many are taking the time now to think about what their lives have been all about – and what their lives now will be all about. I don’t know if this article will speak to your story, but it’s the story of a lot of other Canadians.
One of the surprises of Canadian social trends over the last few years is that many retiring Canadians are taking a second look at church. They’re coming to visit, just to see if anything’s changed, if maybe there’s something in God and faith and church life that they didn’t see before.
A lot of us grew up somewhere near a church culture, in a major Canadian Christian denomination or in the ethnic churches of our ancestors. As we got older and quit going to church, faith itself played a much less significant role in our lives – even if we never really quit believing in God. There was a lot to do: families to raise, careers, friends, hobbies, travel. There was little time for religion – not that we all totally abandoned what we believed. It just seemed less and less relevant to what was going on around us. We made our life decisions based on common sense, on what others were doing, on what the prominent voices around us were propounding.
Times were changing, and the society around us seemed to be less and less interested in religion, too. There were many other solutions and interesting ideas to consider. We were in a new era of open-mindedness and tolerance. Along the way, it seemed that the churches had less and less to say to us – they had little overall impact on how we lived our everyday life. For many of us, “committed faith” was something for the few, the radicals, the fanatics who had the time and inclination to pursue it. “But not us! Moderation in all things!”
Somehow, for many people, church itself became for us a symbol of everything we didn’t like about the old ways: stuffy leaders in special clothing who demanded special treatment and special titles; it seemed like they were always telling us we were wrong, never helping us find what was right. They weren’t listening to us. When the sex and money scandals of the 1980′s – 90′s hit, we were pretty well fed up with organized religion. The slogan for many of us became “God Yes, church No!”
But life has interesting ways of catching us off guard, and over the years we were left with a growing sense of unease, a gap inside. Where did the time go? We’ve been through many life experiences: marriage, then maybe divorce or widowhood, maybe new relationships after that. We’ve been through the whole job-career cycle, coming up to retirement with plaques on the wall, recognition from peers, and money in our pockets for what we’ve always wanted to do – we hope. But a strange thing can happen after you’ve had the freedom to do whatever you want with whomever you wish wherever and whenever you want: everything begins to feel hollow. Our friends, the people we’ve known all our lives, suddenly find themselves in the same space: wondering what to do. We tell the same jokes, we do the same things, and bluntly, it gets tiresome! We start to wonder: “Is there more to life than this?”
“I thought that when I retired, I’d find out what life’s really all about. I’d find enjoyment and satisfaction and creativity. And I got that for awhile. But later what I found was loneliness and depressing sameness even in all the variety. My friends are getting sick, several of them are dying. This disturbs me, partly because my friends have always meant to so much to me. Even more so, because in the past I haven’t had to think much about my own mortality. Now it seems to be forcing itself on me. I’m having health issues that I never thought I’d face, too – life is much less certain, just when I thought it’d be more secure.”
“The hardest part, though, is about my kids: I just don’t see them very much. They’re busy with their own lives, just as I used to be. Did we do enough together when they were at home and small? It seems now that we really don’t know each other anymore. Reminds me of the old song “Cat’s In the Cradle.” It’s harder still because my kids have had divorces and re-marriages too – or they plan to have no children. Getting to see the grandchildren is something I thought would be wonderful, but it’s not turning out the way I expected. My own children aren’t really part of my life – my grandchildren are growing up without me. That seems wrong, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Our retired friends who visit church are looking for something, hoping that they will find it by returning to something solid in their lives – something left behind long ago, before they really understood what life’s all about – before they had enough life experience for faith to make real adult sense. For a lot of us, being forced to go to church as children was part of why we quit going when we got older. Now we’re beginning to wonder: is there a “baby” worth keeping, to be retrieved from the bath water we threw out?
The following thoughts aren’t a sales pitch. All your life someone’s been trying to sell you something: more stuff, more places to go and things to do, relationships, political power, solutions to problems created by other solutions, etc., all with hooks in it to benefit themselves. Religious people have been famous for that, too. We’re not going to do that to you. We want to give you some positive and helpful things to think about as you confront the big questions of your life, as you consider whether faith in God should be more important to you – and whether being involved in “friendships built on faith” could be part of what He wants you to do.
1. Tell yourself the truth, no matter what. Be honest with yourself. Spare yourself no dark hidden places where a comfortable lie has blinded you to reality – especially reality about yourself and the kind of person you’re becoming. If you’ve been wrong, don’t be afraid: now is a good time to come into the light so you can see. If others have mistreated you and it still hurts, now is a good time to come to terms with it. You may not be able to change situations – but God can do things to change you, so that the strength and freshness of something new replaces your past failures. He can do unexpected things to replace the impact of your experiences of hurt and loss.
2. Learn a new “language” of meaning for your life. Genuine faith will give you new ideas, new “stories,” new words to describe and understand what life’s all about. You’ll never regret the freshness you gain as you get away from the tired, trite, over-spun buzzword mantras of our time: “choice, freedom, rights, self, individual, tolerance.” Real life isn’t all black and white – but it isn’t all grey, either. Genuine faith learns the Big Picture, the real picture – it’s much easier to make sense of the details of life when the big picture is clear. Jesus Christ didn’t come to give us “a religious lifestyle option.” He came to show us the way things really are, what God wants to do with our lives, how we can live in a completely new way. What you do with that is the most meaningful, important “choice” you will ever make. Our childhood church experience probably didn’t give us what we’ve been searching for. It isn’t too late to find it now!
3. Don’t be afraid of other people “judging” you. We’ve been told for so long that churches and people of faith are uncompassionate and judgmental. The church experience of your past may have been harsh, and you may find places and people today who are still like that. The good news is that churches where faith is genuine are full of people just like you! They’ve been around the block, and they’ve sensed the emptiness, and they’re looking outside of themselves and their careers and their past for answers, too. They know, just like you do, that the last thing you need is for someone with a special title in special clothing with a cultured voice to criticize you – or to coddle you – or to waste your time with fine-sounding words that really mean absolutely nothing. No church does faith perfectly, but there are many “faith-committed” Canadians who are real, and who don’t fit the religious stereotypes of our time.
4. Make new friends. You don’t have to abandon the old ones! But new friends who have genuine faith will bring out new possibilities in your own life. You can learn about new ways to think – without having to uncritically accept everything you hear. You can see the world through new eyes – the eyes of people whose lives are like yours in age and circumstances, but who’ve lived them out in a different manner. You might not always agree with them. But by meeting new people with new stories, you’ll learn to see your own story in a new light. And because they’re so much like you, you’ll find the most important component of all: hope.
5. Don’t allow yourself to think that you “already know” about faith. Most of us grew up in a kind of religion that gave us only a bare outline of a few of the important things, mixed with a lot of culture and tradition that has little to do with the kind of faith you’re looking for. Best-seller books, TV documentaries, popular movies, etc. aren’t likely to help you find faith – they’re making too much money for that. Come to the Bible, to new friendships, to the experience of “church” with the attitude that you’re exploring it for the first time. The stories of the Bible are stories about people like you, and how God reaches out to them. Even if you hear a few familiar songs and stories, you’ll be amazed at how much of the Good News will be new to you. We think you’ll find it refreshing. The other big difference between us and people who watch TV and read books about faith is that we learn together in friendships built on faith. Relationships are where real spiritual life happens.
6. Make room in your worldview for the supernatural. We’re not talking about chubby angels, ghosts or “things that go bump in the night.” We’re talking about a sense of reality that many ordinary Canadians believe they’ve encountered, one way or another – but they don’t know how to talk about it or what to do with it. If you’ve only considered faith in God as another approach to philosophy and values, change gears: make room to learn about dimensions of everyday experience that are outside our ordinary sensory and scientific knowledge. You’ll still be a rational person, you’ll still appreciate the benefits of science. But there are much better “stories” for living than the impersonal “Big Bang beginning, Ever-Upward Progress, and Cosmic Whimper ending” that we grew up with. You can learn a framework for life that includes the best of reason and also helps you live in the full dimensions of what we are created to be. You will be refreshed and empowered to grow as never before. That’s what we do in this church: we learn to live with God who is alive with us.
7. Find a way to give back. Enjoy the life you have! But give back! Even if you feel like you have nothing to give. Find a way to gather the time and strength and caring that you have, and find someone, somewhere, and “serve them” – with no guarantee of a reward or benefit for you other than the satisfaction of caring for another human being. Do it for them, not for you. As you do this, you will discover other people who need what you have to share. You’ll find that the pain of other people is much like your own. You’ll find new things to learn, new challenges for your own growth as a person. Jesus once said, “If you try to save your life for yourself, you’ll lose it. But if you lose your life for me, you’ll find it.” He wasn’t talking about religion, or about how we die – He was talking about how we live, and about the kind of person we become as we give ourselves away. That’s how we create room in our lives for Him to give to us!
This article was inspired by Paul, who was trying to find his way home … and by Doug, who did.
Paul (not quite his real name, but a real person) was one of my neighbors, a fun and kind retired man who walked his dogs every night and loved to chat with people. He developed lung cancer, and our neighborhood decided to hold a party for him in the cul-de-sac – to celebrate someone we appreciated, while he was still alive. Is it a good idea?! But Paul always lived at some distance from God, and had a deep ache in his spirit – it showed in areas of his life with family and friends. In the late stages of his illness, he used to say, “It’s a long way home, such a long way home, I can’t find my way home.” Some of us tried to show him, and I hope that maybe at the end he did find the Way Home. But things would have been so much better if he’d found it sooner! His funeral was a somber occasion, officiated by a well-meaning cleric who never even knew him, featuring songs and Bible readings that Paul had only vaguely known. His friends didn’t know what to say, and his family expressed their grief and loss, but no one really knew how to comfort them – so little hope.
Doug (his real name) was a member of the South Burnaby church for some 40 years. He, too, was very kind – a quiet, deeply sensitive man, one of BC’s first paramedics. All his life he sought to know God, and to be known by God. His personal mission in life was to help people worship God as He deserves to be worshipped. We all knew him and his family – his children grew up among us. I got to see him during his last hours – what a joy to thank him for being faithful to God, for loving his wife and kids, for being faithful to us all. What a joy to remind him of what we know to be true: we’re not saved by how good we are, but by how good God is! Doug knew that, staked his whole life on it, and was transformed by it. His memorial service was full of the joy of a life lived deeply, surrounded and celebrated by his lifelong friends, children, grandchildren. His faith and his “faith friendships” overflowed into great hope: because of Jesus, our relationships are permanent. We’ll meet again, and it will be better than we could ever imagine.
No matter what has happened in your life, good or bad: God welcomes you into that same genuine certainty!
Even more than people reach out to God, He reaches out to us.
You may not be sure where to find Him – but He knows where to find you.
You may not know his number – but He is always calling yours.
We hope you’ll “pick up the phone” and join in the conversation.
Thanks for walking through these few reflections with us, thinking with us about it. If you feel like commenting below, your thoughts are welcome!
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Burnaby, British Columbia
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