A very wise friend of mine said to me about a year before my retirement, “You need to decide what your platform will be once you are retired.” To introduce yourself as a retired presbyterian pastor is to state a condition, not an identity. Since you no longer introduce yourself as “pastor of such and such a church,” what are you going to say?
I think that is actually a good exercise at various stages of our lives. I remember once going on a cruise and dreading the inevitable question among my dinner companions. “So, what do you do?” I actually avoided the question for several meals and noticed a distinct change in the conversation when I finally acknowldeged that I was a pastor. Not only did the jokes change at the table, but I was approached individually by several members at the table about personal issues they were dealing with. I knew what a doctor felt like.
I was not embarrassed by my profession but did resist carrying all of the sterotypes that were part of people’s image of pastors. But it also made me think about what it was that I wanted to be my image to those who first met me. When my friend asked that question of me as I neared retirement, it raised the question from a different perspective. What was my identity apart from my attachment to a church.
My answer that I put on my calling card was, “author and theologian,” because those were the two aspects of my work that I thought identified my interests. What would yours be? Even if you are not retired, what couple of words would you like to present as reflecting your identity?
It is common to say that I retired from a job but that I don’t retire from God’s call in my life. The question is how you would like to describe your understanding of that calling now.
