On Not Retiring

When you have been teaching as long as I have, surprises are at a minimum.  I would never be silly enough to say that I have seen it all.  The human imagination is too fruitful to think I have seen everything---or that I even know what everything might be.  Human creativity being what it is- not too much is surprising.  In my experience however, college students are not terribly creative.  Many of their foibles and problems are not novel.

I very much like what I get to do, namely, teach religion.  Much of the enjoyment comes from the content, of course.  I guess folks who teach accounting, or some similar discipline might well say the same thing.  But teaching religion really is about life, about meaning and about purpose.  I am not sure accounting is quite that central to life.  I am not crazy enough to think that religion is the answer for all human questions.  In fact, I have enough questions about religion, I don’t even think religion is the answer for all of my human questions.  And if we are honest, most of us think there are some things about religion---at least, traditional religion---that is old-fashioned or irrelevant.  

Much of the enjoyment of teaching comes from the opportunity to form relationships.  I happen to think relationships go to the heart of being human.  Perhaps it is better to say that humans forming relationships do it at a level and sophistication that animals don’t.  We cannot go to a zoo and not be impressed by the relationships monkeys can form.  As a farmer, I am pretty sure I had relationships with my dogs and other animals.  Ask any pet owner and no doubt they will say they have a relationship with their pet.

I feel especially grateful that I can still do this relationship forming even after so many years teaching.  I am aware there is a bigger gap in the age of students and myself.  To be sure, their ability with technology usually surpasses my ability.  I am sure many of them are much smarter than I am.  And some have had experiences I cannot dream of ever having.  But that said, I still can bring perspective, knowledge and abilities they can’t match.  The good news is my ego is not front and center, so they get my full attention and encouragement.  I am not competing with them in any fashion.  Their growth and development are front and center of my focus.

All this is a backdrop to an incident that just occurred at the end of my first class in one of my classes.  As students begin to file out the door for the rest of the day, I noticed a young woman coming to the front to speak to me.  I knew her from a previous experience in a more brief time in another class I lead.  Because that other class is much less time together, I did not know her well.  I recall thinking she was a bright, engaging young woman.  I had not seen her for at least a year, so I had no clue what she might say.

I greeted her and she smiled.  Then she began by saying, “I just wanted to thank you.”  I smiled back at her with a quizzical look, since I had not done much yet.  She continued, “I wanted to thank you for not retiring.  I really wanted to take a religion class with you.”  I was taken aback.  Never in all my time has anyone thanked me for not retiring!  Of course, for a long time I would have been too young to retire.  But now I have made it.  In fact, I think about it with some regularity.  When is it time to say, “Enough?”

I can even imagine some folks wish I would retire.  They could find a younger faculty person who is smarter, more up-to-date and cheaper.  This is not false humility; it is true.  But it is also true that I probably bring something that no other faculty person can bring: I bring me---my unique self.  That is not replaceable at any cost.  The college can get younger, cheaper faculty people, but there is only one of me.  And when I retire, that uniqueness goes away.

I am sure I am taking this much further than the young woman intended.  I am grateful for her words, especially, for what she taught me again without even knowing she was teaching.  The main teaching is the fact that I am unique.  So are you!  Each of us is a child of God.  Of course, we are all humans; that we have in common.  But I am unique.  My soul, the essence of me, is unique---one of a kind.  This is what I bring to my teaching that no one else can do.  I think this is what spoke to the gal and what she wanted to experience again.

I hope some of the content I share will be important for her and her life.  But more importantly, I hope I can share my uniqueness in ways that address her hopes.  I think this is what we do for each other.  Some of us do this through love.  Many more of us do this through friends---close friends and those more on the acquaintance end.  And we can bring this uniqueness into crowds of people.  Of course, we cannot get to know everyone in a crowd.  But we can be a positive presence there.

To be a positive presence spiritually speaking is to bring compassion, peace and justice to every scene in which we find ourselves.  If more and more of us can do this, we will begin to transform our world.  This is the dream of so many of our spiritual traditions.  Jesus called this the kingdom.  It might be called nirvana or something else.  And as long as we live, we can keep doing this.  This is the best reason I know what we should never retire---even though we might finally leave our workplace.