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Good morning.

My life is changing at present.  Nothing special about that – not compared to the challenges and traumatic upheavals that some people have to face. 

I’m moving from a busy working life of over forty years to retirement.  At 66 it was certainly time.  I’m blessed with wife, children, grandchildren.  I have energy to try new things.  I’ve little to complain about.

My experience as a priest and pastor has given me the opportunity of watching others dealing with change.  I’ve seen some very courageous people.  They recognise the need for change before they are forced into it; welcoming each phase of life for what it offers rather than trying to cling to the last one.

Like everybody else in our aging population, I face the obvious things.  There’s the challenge of pension rather than salary; about getting a little older – And of course there is the inexorable progress towards the three score years and ten. 

But those are just the details.  Really it’s about loss of role, identity and status.  I’ve been fortunate.  I’ve enjoyed the buzz of what I’ve been doing, the friends and contacts, the adrenalin rush of working hard and trying to achieve some difficult things.  And now I wonder who I am if I am not defined by what I do.

Ah that one – my old friend – the spiritual challenge of paying more attention to being than to doing.  More to relationships than to functions.  More to savouring than to measuring.  More to quality than to quantity. I’ve successfully kept that one at arm’s length for a long time.  And now I have no way of avoiding it.

Father, Be with all who are passing through life’s changes

Journey with us

So that our transitions may become transformations

Amen.