So(ul)journ!

As the months move me closer to retirement, I’ve begun to notice that retirement isn’t a moment on a calendar — it’s more like a bridge between two realities, a slow unfolding into something never experienced before. The decision itself came on October 4th, spoken aloud to a congregation I’ve walked with for over a decade. But the inner work started months previously. However, the moment the words left my mouth, it made it real — not only for me, but for everyone whose life is entwined with mine and whose future will be shaped by the plans now unfolding before us.

Many folk have offered the usual advice: “Take time away.” At first I wasn’t sure what that meant. After all, retirement is time away — from schedules, from meetings, from Sunday rhythms, from the particular weight of being responsible for others. Upon reflecting, I’m beginning to understand: they don’t mean time away from work. They mean time away from filling the space too quickly.

After almost fifty years of meaningful work — ministry, government service, the travel industry — I’ve lived with a calendar that always moved faster than perhaps I was comfortable. My sense of worth was often tethered to what I produced, created, or offered. Retirement invites me — gently and a bit uncomfortably — to loosen that tether.

This in-between season has made me ask:

What emerges when nothing is demanding that I be “Pastor Malcolm”?

Who am I when I’m not needed in the way I once was?

What rises when the expectations fall quiet?

I don’t have any answers yet, and I’m starting to think that’s the point. This is not a time for immediate clarity. It’s a time for noticing — for letting the ambivalence of what sits before me become open to the possibilities.

My renewal leave last year gave me a small glimpse of this spaciousness. I remember waking without a sermon in mind, without emails waiting, without the constant pastoral mental inventory of who needed a call or a visit. There was room to pay attention to family, to the world around us, to the frenetic reality of my life and what’s revealed when activity is replaced with an open schedule. There was room for writing, wondering — wandering — all things that tend to get crowded out when a life is shaped by the needs of others.

I think that may be the invitation of this season: not to leap into the next thing, but to sit long enough with the open space that the next thing can find me.

I’m thinking that this next great adventure called “retirement” is not an ending so much as an opening. A place where calling isn’t assigned by role but discovered by listening. A season where the journey shifts pace, but not purpose.

So I’m learning to hold this time open — not rushing to define it, not assigning it tasks, simply walking with it. I trust that, in this opening, something true will take root. And when it does, I’ll be ready — not as a pastor stepping into another responsibility, but as one following the path that unfolds under their feet, one step at a time.

For now, retirement feels less like stepping off the path and more like stepping onto a new one — another stretch of one soul’s journey, unfolding with each step. If you’re walking a path similar to mine — moving from a long career into retirement — I’d love to hear what you’re learning along the way. What’s surprising you? What’s helping you embrace the new season?