Retirement Blog One

Blog One

January 1^st 2019

I always think of a New Year a little like a field covered in snow where no one has trod, it is unmarked, pure, clean and clear.

However the reality is that almost immediately we get a new calendar or diary it begins to fill up with appointments and engagements each one dancing and calling for attention, some of even demanding attention with threats of dire consequences should you neglect to attend to them, like birthdays and anniversaries.  

(Interestingly one 'anniversary' I recall is my making a New Year's Resolution on the 1st January 1975 to become a Christian)

As the New Year begins I am very conscious that in six months I am scheduled to retire.

However for most Christian Ministers employed or engaged by the Church this means not only the end of current engagement but relocation as well.

That relocation will also mean in most cases, a serious downsizing. It will call for the needful task of dispensing of accumulated books, files, resources and a whole host of others things that sit alongside a busy and fulsome ministry.

That is before you begin to think of furniture which has a distinct habit of growing to fill every available space. If you have a four bed-roomed house with a study and possibly a lounge and dining room, chances are it will be filled with furniture and other things.

We are moving from such a house to a three bed-roomed house with one reception room, a lounge diner.

We have known this for some time and have occasionally talked about it and even got rid of some stuff, but there is still a huge elephant in the room.

I am hoping that like Dali Swan’s Reflecting Elephants that is what we find when we finally do tackle it face on. That those big cumbersome elephants once brought to the surface are indeed swans. 

I am also acutely aware that I have files, both hard copy and electronically that once they surface will bring back a flood of memories.

It feels in some ways like clearing out someones effects following their death and I am reluctant to begin.

However now that the calendar is shouting 2019 at the top of its voice and there is a big red R on the 30^th June it is time to tackle the elephants in all of the rooms!

And do you know how to eat an elephant – one bite at a time!