What is Your Definition of Retirement?

Here are four definitions of retirement penned by people who attended my retirement classes over the years.  Which one do you like best?  I’d love to hear from you.

1. Retirement is another life forum where you can perform a new act in the drama of your life, becoming ever more the person that God intends you to be. 
   
   
2. Retirement is that purifying gift and stage of adult life inviting you to summarize and integrate the meaning of who you’ve become, as a reflection of God’s love.
   
   
3. Retirement is the point in life when you see the events, circumstances, and relationships that have filled the chalice of life, from a higher vantage point. Retirement is designed to be a time of offering to God your total self.  Retirement is the phase when hopes and dreams can be actualized, free from the strictures that would hinder personal and spiritual growth.
   
   
4. Retirement is a time when you change your focus from “doing” to “being”, a time from shedding some of the unnecessary trappings for a more simple existence, while still remaining involved in the mission of Christ.

No, these are not the definitions of retirement you’d find in a financial retirement preparation brochure yet I have discovered that a spiritual thread runs through all the needs of retirees, a thread of pursuing peace and finding purpose.  It is this thread of the Spirit that has the power to transform an ordinary retirement into an exceptional journey of discovery, passion, and an invigorating lifestyle. 

Johnson Institute Course 103, Retirement as a Spiritual Journey, portrays a panorama not only of a new vision of retirement… but also how to make it happen in your life. 

Note: Every parish community needs a retirement ministry.  JI Course 103 can be the core of that ministry.

Abundant Blessings,

Richard P. Johnson PhD