Rev. Dr. Kate Winters, Dwelling in Presence, June 8, 2023
To my surprise, Joel joined me in my early rising this morning. I told him I was thinking of writing a post entitled “Back to the Drawing Board.” I seem to be asking all the same questions I used to ask every time I was in transition mode. What is my true calling? How am I meant to serve the world? Who am I now? I am clearly wrestling in this retirement with having a purpose.
He shared some wise words with me. “Kate, I think your purpose right now is unbecoming.” Now to me that meant “unattractive,” and I certainly did not want to hear that from my husband. “No,” he said, “unbecoming who you were.” He said that he has been thinking after all these years in ministry that he has a right to his retirement. He gave himself fully over to the church (and yes, he certainly did!), and now he thinks that God is good with him exploring his other loves. His art, pottery, his land, the birds. It has taken him some time to unbecome the minister, the administrator, the one with whom the buck stopped. Now he is free to become something else.
Honestly, I have loved watching the stress drop away from him as he builds his birdhouses (now sheltering swallows, chickadees, and blue birds), mows paths in his “No Mow May” lawn for me to stroll on, tends his many gardens, bakes cookies, and sings with abandon at his pottery wheel. Joel is in his element. But first he had to “unbecome” the pastor.
Retirement, he told me, must first be about unbecoming. This makes you free to become something new. Then he said something startling. “It may be that you needed your surgery to begin this process.” After being somewhat appalled, I realized that there may be some truth in this. For unlike Joel, the activities that I am most deeply drawn to are many of the very things that I occupied myself with as pastor – reading, writing, teaching, creating liturgy, gathering folks for good conversation, for prayer, and taking a stand for justice. It is a little harder to define myself as separate from my pastoral role. The last few months of preparing for surgery, having it, and beginning recuperation have stopped me in my tracks. And, as Joel said to me, “I needed to unbecome what I was to become who I am now.
So, it is time for me to unbecome the pastor, but I am sure this does not mean totally giving up the things I love. During one of my first transitions as an adult, from grad school to the working world, Sr. Margaret Farley, my beloved advisor from Yale Divinity School, told me to choose to do what I loved, for it is in that way that I would serve the world with the gifts that God had given me. This was long before I ever heard Frederick Buchner’s oft quoted saying that your true calling lies where your greatest gladness meets the world’s hunger. I have been advising others with this insight for a long time. And now, it is time to advise myself.
Currently, my deepest gladness lies in my marriage, my home with Joel, and my time in solitude. I am not sure if these can ultimately feed the world’s hunger, which is immense. But as they lower my stress and bring my heart back to life, I will allow myself to bask and heal in this place as I unbecome the pastor and become, hopefully again, fully engaged and alive.
Dwelling in Presence 