Welcome to the Rest of Your Life

If a man lives many years,

let him rejoice in them all.

ECCLESIASTES 2:8

Congratulations. The best time of your life is here. This isn't merely your most important journey; it is your only journey.

   Retirement changes things a bit. One man my age made these observations, which I keep in my Eclectic Notebook:

Everything is farther away than it used to be. It is twice as far to the corner and I've noticed they have added a hill.

   I have given up running to catch the bus. It leaves faster than it used to, and it seems to me they are making their steps a bit steeper.

   Have you noticed the smaller print they're using in the newspapers? And there is no sense in asking people to read aloud... everyone speaks in such a low voice I can hardly hear them.

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   The material they are using to make clothes is so skimpy these days, especially around the hips and waist. What they use for the length seems to be better quality.

   I think my legs are getting longer, however. At times it is almost impossible to reach my shoelaces.

   Even people are changing! They are much younger than they used to be when I was their age. On the other hand, people my age are much older than they used to be.

   You know something? They don't even make mirrors the way they used to, either.

GREETING THE SENIOR YEARS

Whimsy aside, retirees these days do face a great need to prepare well for this increasingly complex time of life. Early retirement, longer life expectancy, and rapid changes in economic conditions require us to lay careful plans for the days when we'll be dimmer in our eyes, fainter in our laughter, more fond of our cane, deeper in our sighs and more frugal of our gold.

   Here are a few basic suggestions for greeting the senior years. See if they don't work for you.

Acknowledge Your Age

There is nothing to be gained by fighting the inevitable. Never pretend to be younger than you are, or wish for things that are not. Since you can't change the date of your birth, you are not responsible for your age, only for what you make of it.

   Others have done amazing things in the years of their seniority. At 88, for example, John Wesley was preaching daily with eloquent power and undiminished popularity.

   Benjamin Franklin invented bifocals at the age of 78.

   Eamon de Valera was president of Ireland at the age of 91.

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   At 90, Pablo Picasso was producing drawings and engravings.

   At 89, Artur Rubinstein gave one of his greatest recitals in New York's Carnegie Hall.

   Albert Schweitzer built a hospital in Africa and managed it until he was 89.

   At 88, Michelangelo did architectural plans for the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli.

   At 83, Aleksandr Derensky wrote Russia and History's Turning Point.

   At 82, Winston Churchill wrote A History of English-Speaking Peoples.

   At 82, Leo Tolstoy wrote I Cannot Be Silent.

   At 81, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe finished Faust.

   At 88, Konrad Adenauer was still serving as chancellor of Germany.

   At 84, Somerset Maugham wrote Points of View.

   Grandma Moses began oil painting at the age of 75 and created her famous work, Christmas Eve, when she was 101.

   J. Irvin Overholtzer organized the global ministry of Child Evangelism Fellowship after he was 60 years of age.

   William E. Gladstone took up a new language when he was 70. At 83, he became the prime minister of Great Britain for the fourth time.

   Four major poets who lived to be more than 80 years of age did more work in the last decade of their lives than they were able to accomplish between ages 20 and 30.

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   Winston Churchill, England's great statesman who led his country through World War II, became Prime Minister for the second time when he was 78.

   Michelangelo painted his greatest work, The Last Judgment, when he was 86.

   Johann Sebastian Bach composed some of his best music at 85.

   At 120, Moses' "eyes were not dim, nor was his natural force abated" (Deuteronomy 34:7). Sarah and Abraham started a family well beyond child-bearing years. Joshua and Caleb led the Hebrew army across the Jordan to conquer the Promised Land when they were in their eighties.

   How old are you? Thank God for every year of experience and press on. Need and struggle are what excite and inspire us. And that's true in retirement years as well.

Don't Be Afraid to Fail

   I once thought that initiative, talent, and connections were the ingredients of success. Now I believe that, paradoxically, it is an ability to fail that makes a person successful in the end. I've seen musicians, business executives, farmers, and writers fail again and again, only to press on anyhow and achieve success in the end. Just because you can't do everything you want in retirement, my late friend Bob Pierce would say, don't fail to do something. Your life is not over in retirement; it's just beginning in a new and exciting way. Strong people make mistakes as often as weak people do. The difference is that strong people admit them, laugh at them, learn from them, and press on. That is how they become strong.

Admire those who attempt great things, even though they fail.

Seneca

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   "Failure never hurt anybody," Jack Lemmon once said. "It's the fear of failure that kills you." Former California senator and author S.I. Hayakawa believed that "there is a vast difference between saying 'I have failed three times' and saying 'I am a failure.' "

Investigate New Careers

Life is a process of change. This applies both to the body we live in and to the activities we carry out at work, at play, and in worship. Work that is well chosen can add structure and pleasure to your life. It can offer stimulation and challenge and widen your social circle.

   The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) found in a survey that large numbers of older Americans prefer to continue in some form of employment after they retire. Of those people already retired, more than one-third said they would rather work than be idle. Of those over age fifty-five who are still working, about three-fourths said they would prefer to continue working even if they could afford to retire. In later chapters, this book will list some of the opportunities for fulfilling work available to senior citizens.

   J. Allan Peterson, founder of Family Concern, underscores the wisdom of cutting back gradually by those who are heavily in demand for speaking and counseling. "It's always better to slow down voluntarily and purposefully while the invitations are still coming," he says, "rather than to wait until opportunities dry up completely and no one wants you anymore. A person nearing retirement must be proactive rather than reactive."

   A pastor who built a large church thought he would be there until he retired. But he miscalculated. Because of some unforeseen problems he was asked to leave. Today he struggles with rejection, resentment, loss of ministry opportunities, a forced, premature retirement and scaled-down living accommodations.

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   When Dwight Swanson retired, he and his wife Audrey took a leisurely month-long vacation. At the end of that time, they stopped in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where Dwight was scheduled to address a utilities stockholders' meeting.

   In the hotel lobby they noticed that a musical group was rehearsing for a Campus Crusade seminar and dinner in the same facility that evening. Because they had contributed to the ministry in the past, they decided to attend the seminar after Dwight addressed the stockholders. At the end of the Campus Crusade meeting, they joined a reception line to greet Bill and Vonette Bright, the founders of the organization.

   When Bill learned that Dwight had just retired, he exclaimed, "God has sent you! I've been praying for retired businessmen to provide our ministry with professional administrative help."

   Although Dwight wasn't looking for weighty responsibilities, he and Audrey visited Arrowhead Springs in San Bernardino, California, and shortly afterward entered joyfully into a whole new career. Dwight soon became heavily involved in the work as administrative associate and later as vice president of administration. Audrey became a member of the Campus Crusade Wives' Advisory Board. She also worked with the Clothes Closet, a program to help Crusade staff who faced financial crises or who were returning from overseas missions and needed clothing. She was also active as prayer coordinator for Associates in Media, a Campus Crusade ministry in Hollywood.¹

TESTIMONIALS

To questions about how their retirement is working out, my friends have answered in many different ways. Richard C. Halverson, chaplain of the United States Senate, views retirement as an excellent time to record memories for posterity.

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"Though such a record might not be publishable," he said, "it would be of great benefit to children and grandchildren."

   Retirement has often failed, Stephen Lazarian told me, because retirees have mentally and physically "ceased from their labors." Steve, head of Crown City Construction Company in Pasadena, California, said he has known people who

have been unable to grasp the opportunities, potential, and joy of sharing the gifts that God has given them during their years of growing, learning, maturing, and mastering their calling.

   Warren W. Wiersbe, former director of the "Back to the Bible Broadcast" in Lincoln, Nebraska, stressed the joy of freedom — not from responsibility or accountability, but from the shackles of schedules and pressures. "People who fail in retirement," he said, "are those who made a living instead of making a life."

   To Dave Breese, head of Christian Destiny in Hillsboro, Kansas, retirement means maturity, which brings responsibility to pass on lessons we have learned to those who are still seeking answers.

   Robert Walker, founder of Christian Life Missions and Christian Life magazine, sees no need to retire if a person is doing what he likes to do and can stay with it. But if forced to retire, "immediately find something else in which to serve the Lord and honor Him."

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   "Retirement is changing to a new chapter of life," notes Robert Andringa, president of CEO Services Group in Englewood, Colorado. Bob doesn't plan to retire as his father and father-in-law have done — by just suddenly stopping work for someone. He plans to develop relationships that will "allow [him] to continue similar activities, but on a gradually declining basis in terms of time and intensity.

   For Assistant Police Chief Robert Vernon in Los Angeles, retirement will mean a shift from taking and participating to that of giving and helping. Perhaps he may spend fewer days in the trenches and more from the sidelines praying, counseling, and writing; but he wants to be somehow involved in the battle. He will prepare, he said, just as he prepared for his career in his teens by asking: (1) What do I enjoy doing? (2) What skills do people who know me well say I perform with excellence? and (3) What opportunities are becoming available?

   Sociologist Tony Campolo at Eastern College in St. Davids, Pennsylvania, has studied the subject in depth.

Sociologists point out that, because of longevity, it is possible for people to have several careers in one lifetime. The first career is that of a parent who provides for the care of children as a primary vocation. The second stage, which usually begins at about 40, enables the husband and wife to become adult leaders in church and community while still carrying on gainful employment. The third career is that of formal full-time Christian service or community service that follows being released from the burden of everyday money earning.

   Recently in Singapore some social scientists told me that the biggest problem of the American society is not our teenagers but our elderly people. They let me know in no uncertain terms that they felt the American population had an irresponsible elderly group. In Singapore and in China, the elderly care for the young and are engaged in

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helping young people through difficult times, whereas in America the elderly have a tendency to retreat from family obligations and go off to live the life of ease.

   Remember what Jesus said about the man who filled his barn with the goods essential for old age security and then said, "Take ease, my soul"? The Lord said, "Thou fool..." (Luke 12:20).

   My friend Evon Hedley notes the importance of planning in advance for these golden years and maintaining balance. "Learn," he says, "from the experience of others and be positive, always."

   Wesley L. Duewell, retired president of OMS International, Greenwood, Indiana, believes that there may be a proper time to retire from administrative leadership and from some forms of involvement, but "there is never a time to retire from the principles of the stewardship of life, and Christian life is stewardship."

   Visit the home of retired Methodist minister R. Hylton Saunders and his wife Dorothy in Fallbrook, California, and you'll come away inspired. Their ordered lives spent as lay counselors, the visits from their friends, the flowers in their ample garden — all speak of good preparation for their senior years. "Beauty outlasts ugliness, growth exceeds decay," says Hylt. "Almighty love is at the helm."

THE GLOW OF SUNSET

At 86, Rosie and I live by the rules of the elderly. If the toothbrush is wet, you have cleaned your teeth. If the bedside radio is warm in the morning you left it on all night. If you are wearing one brown and one black shoe, quite possibly you have a like pair in the closet.

   Rosie has aged some in the past year, and now seems like a woman entering her forties. She deplores with me the miscreant who regularly enters our house in the mid-

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dle of the night, squeezes the toothpaste tube in the middle, and departs.

   As for me, I am as bright as can be expected, remembering the friend who told me years ago, "If your I.Q. ever breaks 100, sell!"

   Like most elderly people, we spend happy hours in front of our TV set. We rarely turn it on, of course.

   I walk with a slight straddle, hoping people will think I just got off a horse. I considered carrying a riding crop but gave it up — too ostentatious.

   I stagger when I walk and small boys follow me, making bets on which way I'll go next. This upsets me; children shouldn't gamble.

   On my daily excursions, I greet everyone punctiliously, including the headrests in parked, empty cars. Dignified friends seem surprised when I salute them with a breezy "Hi!" They don't realize I haven't enough breath for some huge two-syllable word of greeting.

   My motto this year is from the Spanish: "I don't want the cheese, I just want to get out of this trap."

   When we are old, the young are kinder to us, and we are kinder to each other. There is a sunset glow that irradiates our faces, and is reflected on the faces of those around us. But it is still sunset. (The late Bruce Bliven)

Chapter Two  ||  Table of Contents