For most of my working life, Monday has been my day off. Of course there are all kinds of reasons why a pastor might work on a day off, such as a funeral or a family in need of a call when a death occurs. There are meetings with those for whom Mondays are work days and travel for meetings outside of the local church. Over the years there were plenty of Mondays when I put in a few hours of work. Sometimes, I grew a bit tired when work weeks didn’t have breaks. Sometimes I was frustrated with phone calls that came in on Mondays that could have waited until Tuesday. But most of the time I understood that interruptions were part of the life of a pastor. I also benefitted from a schedule that was more flexible than many other people, including most other professionals. I could leave work to volunteer in the classroom of one of our children. If a family member was ill, I could take time to care for that person. If a day was long, I might sneak home for a nap in the afternoon. It was a good life and the pace fit my personality well.

Now that we are semi-retired, our official half-time job hours are scheduled on Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday. Of course there are plenty of times when we have meetings on Mondays and programs on Saturdays and things that we do on other days when we are not officially working for the church. There is one member of the church with whom I had three scheduled meetings last week. I saw that member face to face all three days that we worked in the office. I spoke on the phone with that same member on tow of the other days of the week. I had a Zoom meeting that included that person on Friday. I exchanged a few text messages with that person on Saturday, meaning that I had engaged in conversation with that person every day of the week. It was someone who was on the committee that hired us. That person knows that we work only half time. That person knows that we don’t come to the office every day. But that person is also one of the most engaged volunteers in the church and is heading up a very important program that will occur in the first week of November. The calls and conversations were respectful. The meetings were necessary to keep the process going forward. That person is generous with their time. An occasional phone call, text message or even meeting is just part of the way of life that I have chosen.

Yesterday was one of my days off. It was also a day filled with meetings, though only one of them was a church meeting. That meeting was not part of my service with this local church. I serve on the board of a national church organization and we had a two-hour meeting yesterday. The other meetings were personal in nature. Retired people have meetings just like working people. We began our day with a meeting with our financial advisor. Since the advisor is in a different time zone, it was an hour earlier here than where the advisor lives. That meant that having the meeting first thing in the morning freed up the rest of the day. After a lifetime of living with limited income and often having very little left for savings, it surprises me that we have a financial advisor. It happens to be a good thing because I’m not the best money manager in the world and meeting with the advisor forces me to be practical. I genuinely need the advice. But I confess that I don’t spend much time worrying about all of the theoretical, “what if” scenarios that come up. Basically, it seems that we have enough to live comfortably and it appears that we will have enough for the rest of our lives. Even with the markets tumbling and grocery prices skyrocketing, we do not need to be worried, if I understood the maze of charts and projections the advisor led us through.

That is a good thing, because the next meeting was with an electrical contractor who is preparing an estimate for a few home improvements we want to make. I suspect that the estimate will not be a small number. There have been times in our lives when we deferred projects like this and it seems like a luxury to be able to consider some modest projects to make our home a bit more comfortable.

I finished up with the contractor in time to make it to my board meeting. I’m not a big fan of meetings and I’m tired of Zoom meetings, but I really enjoy the other people who serve on this board and we do some very good work together. And through the blessing of time zones, the meeting that started at 3 pm in the eastern time zone was over in time for a late lunch here in the Pacific Time Zone. That left an afternoon and evening for fun things like a walk with my wife, a trip to the grocery store, a nice dinner, and a bit of reading. Best of all, there was a late afternoon stop at our son’s place where I got hugs from grandchildren, witnessed our oldest grandson being responsible caring for the chickens, including dealing with a messy situation with grace, and I got a bit of time to just sit in the chair rocking our youngest grandson. The life of the young family is so busy with the parents working so hard, juggling farm chores with childcare and professional careers. It feels like I have the true luxury of a retirement lifestyle when I can just sit and rock the baby while everyone around me is rushing to complete a thousand necessary tasks. The baby is fascinated with my beard, which means he looks me straight in the eyes and I wonder what he is thinking. My beard is too short for him to pull, so his little fingers simply stroke my cheek and make me glad to have him in my arms.

I may sometimes complain about working on my day off, but there are moments that make up for whatever it was I was complaining about. In years to come, I won’t remember the meetings, but I won’t forget the joy of holding the baby. Life is extraordinarily good to me.