Re: retirement

Retirement is a relatively new invention.
For most of human history
there was no such thing as retirement.


Folks used to work until the infirmity of age
got to them
and they couldn't
work no more.


Living with their extended family
on the farm,
they had someone to take care of them.


Then came industrialization.
Jobs away from the farm.
Workers' rights.
Pensions.
Social Security.


Urbanization.
People became mobile.
They left the farm
and took factory jobs.


When all of this came together,
retirement was invented.


Now retirement may have to be reinvented--
or at least modified.
The economic downturn
and the demographics of our time
may call for semi-retirement to be
the norm.


With the ability to work from home
with internet access,
retirement may become rehomement.


Retirement, vacations, and weekends--
all the result of changing technologies
and humanizing forces.


New ways of getting things done
and being human.
Human history is shaped by
evolving economic environments
and complexification of common life.


To retire means to have time to enjoy
God's creation
and to do something useful
that you didn't have time to do before.


To retire means that your occupation
no longer occupies all your time;
that you can give more time to your vocation.
Vocations have no vacations.
Our calling never hangs up.




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