The 60-Second Sabbath

On Retirement

Three months from today will be my final day at work. "At work?" August 31 beckons as my final day of employment, but certainly not my final day of work.

How do we define work, these days? We define work as the activity that brings us income. If you make a living at it (or part of a living), it's considered work.

Some of us are fortunate enough to be "doing work" that brings us joy, meaning, life. Others drag through days solely because we need the paycheck, finding the time at work draining, disheartening, soul-stealing. For those of us in this latter place, we need time away from work to find ourselves again.

Do you find yourself at work? That is, at your job do you engage in tasks that express and nurture who you really are? Or does work grind away at your essential self?

I suspect that for most of us, work is a mixture of both--we do find satisfaction, meaning and joy in some things, but at other times, we feel sad and weary--depleted, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually.

Where am I on this continuum? It doesn't matter. In these three last months, I shall hang on to what brings meaning and satisfaction while I grin and bear the remaining frustration and obstacles.

In a phone conversation last week with with one of my current authors (who recently retired), she advised: "The joy of retirement is being able to choose what you do, even when (at times) what you choose looks a lot (to others) like work. I engage in what brings me life."

In three months plus one day, that will be me. Even now, several months after having announced my plans to retire, every retiree I've talked to says: "It's good. You're going to love it. You start life over again."

I'm ready.

Text and image © 2016 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Your Passions

God gives us many gifts to share with others--
    our time, for example,
    our talents,
    our resources.
God calls us to use these
    to grace the world.

One such gift we often overlook
    are our passions
    (hopes, dreams, visions);
these, too, are a gift from God.
God longs for us to embrace them,
    pursue them,
    use them to grace the world.

Do not run from your passions;
race full-tilt toward them.
Those other steps you hear?
That's God gleefully trotting beside you.

Text and image © 2016 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Sophia at the Airport

I ran into Sophia at my departure gate
    at the Atlanta airport.
I'd never seen her agitated before,
    but something had set her off.
She  launched into a rant
    worthy of Julia Sugarbaker,
addressing no one in directly,
    but many in absentia...

    "If you can't bear the thought,"
    she said,
    "of sharing a restroom
    with someone who happens to be transgendered,
    then please just
    pee in the bushes.

    "For God's sake...
    and yes I mean God's sake...
    get over yourself.

    "Read your Bible, people:
    God created you male and female,
    not male or female;
    male + female = the image of God.
    Your insistence on categorizing people
    as solely one or the other
    is an offense to God's ongoing,
        innovative imagination
    and the ever-unfolding diverse beauty
        of creation."

I looked around uncomfortably,
but it didn't appear anyone else was paying attention.
She wasn't done:

    "People are who people are,
    and if they don't fit your definitions
    then your definitions need to change."

She drew our the word "change"
like a southern belle...
very Julia-like.

    "God created us complex,
    and if you don't understand,
    that's fine,
    as long as you sit quietly,
        listen,
        and learn."

Then came a pause of several seconds,
after which I asked,
"Better?"

    "Yes,"
    she said,
    smoothing her skirt,
    "much."

Text and image © 2016 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Peace

Today,
it's all about the image...

Text and image © 2016 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Act, Speak, Believe, Begin

Act boldly on your convictions--
    knowing you could be wrong.

Speak your truth--
    acknowledging your perspective
    is necessarily limited.

Believe and embrace your faith--
    admitting that you're leaping into the dark
    along with everyone else.

Begin each day anew--
    open to the unexpected
    and unsettling.

In short,
    act,
    speak,
    believe
    and begin
    with great humility.
Then community, happiness and healing
    become a real possibility.

Text and image © 2016 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Into God

I dream,
and in my dream
I approach a time in my life
    of significant change.
People in the dream ask me,
    "And what shall you do?"

And I see clearly what I shall do:
"I shall live in God," I say.

Yes, I say this in the dream,
and there, where, dreamlike,
deep and undefinable things
    take physical shape,
there is a vast area,
    a vast space
that is God,
    right there in front of me,
    and bit off to the side,
    tangible, permeable.

Into this space I step.

I step out of this life,
    this distraction,
    this dislocation,
and into God,
where, from this moment on,
I've decided I shall live,
I shall eat, love, laugh, sleep cry...

I will still be here, of course,
    in this home,
    surrounded by this family,
but shifted, focused, sheltered...
    in God.

I wake up;
what made sense in the dream
    continues to make sense awake:

I have stepped out of something,
    somewhere,
    somelife,
and into God.

Here I live and breathe and have my being.

Text and image © 2016 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

Sleepy Willy

Black cat purrrs
on black sheets
between us
as we wait for sleep,

purrring that calls us
out of ourselves
into community,
into this moment,

says, "Leave behind
whatever today
pulled you away
from the needful, the essential."

Black cat purrrs us
into simple being,
here and now,
into sleep.

Text and image © 2016 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

On Friendship

God forgive me
for underestimating
    the power,
    the value,
    the deep grace
of friendship.

In the vast repository
    of gifts I take for granted,
friendship makes up
    the largest portion.

To all those people
who have befriended me--
    apologies
    and gratitude.

It seems I allow (all too often)
    my small fears,
    my fractures,
    my insecurities,
    my neediness
to block the way
to deeper community.

I need you all.
I grieve lost opportunities.

Text and image © 2016 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

God Dreams

Where do they start,
these dreams we hold
(so cautiously!)
in our hearts?
    ("So foolishly!" says the world.)

Do they begin with belief?
    with speech?
    with action?

Do we believe ourselves
    into the new reality?
speak ourselves
    into the new reality?
act ourselves
    into the new reality?

How, today,
do we create these things
our hearts ache to embrace?

God desires
what we dream.

God dreams
what we desire.

Text and image © 2016 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.

 

Retirement Coffee

We had coffee,
two-months post retirement.
My first comment,
when I joined her at the table,
was how relaxed she looked,
    her face less lined,
    her posture less rigid,
    and what was the other thing?
    Oh, yeah...
    the smile.

"So how is it,
this retirement thing?"
I asked.

The smile broadened.
"I know you've heard it before,
but it's true:
I'm as busy as I've ever been,
but doing the things I love."

"It suits you.
You look...
healthier."

"I do, don't I?"
she laughed.
"Only one thing bugs me..."

"What's that?"

"People constantly ask me
what I do all day,
and I know what I do
(since I'm the one doing it),
but it's hard to articulate
since there's no longer the labels
that made describing what I did before
    so easy.
I say, 'I do this or that,'
and it sounds trivial.
It's not trivial,
and I know that,
it's just not structured,
it's just not...conventional,
but instead rich and full and real,
a hodge-podge of experiences
in a more authentic life,
lived more from my heart
and less from my wallet."

Silence for a few seconds.

"I want that," I said.

Text and image © 2016 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.