Linet Arthur
Retirement is probably different for everyone, but there are inevitably some common features to the shift from a relatively predictable work pattern to a lengthy expanse of unstructured time. As I contemplated retirement beforehand, I felt excited by the prospect – an unending holiday with money coming in. What could be better? I delighted in the thought of finishing the aspects of work that I did not enjoy – marking and meetings – while anticipating that I would miss my colleagues and students.
Retiring has connotations of withdrawing – from work, of course, but also in a more general sense, from company and society. I hope my retirement will be the opposite: a chance to engage in learning, campaigning, and creativity. At the same time, I’m aware of the dangers of ‘action for action’s sake’, neglecting the opportunity for restoring spiritual strength. Caroline Graveson (1937 – in an old edition of Christian Faith and Practice) said that ‘True leisureliness is a beautiful thing and may not lightly be given away … People do not pour their joys or sorrows into the care of those with an eye on the clock’.
So I need a balance in my newly-retired life and at the moment busy-ness is outweighing leisureliness. Alongside the long-term project of clearing my office of 25 years of detritus while also attending classes in portrait-drawing, sculpture, and French – in the last couple of weeks I have met a cousin and husband who were visiting Oxford for the day, helped another cousin take her narrowboat to Reading, and collected two bantam pullets from Stadhampton to take to my mother. I have just agreed to join Oxford Friends Action on Poverty
(OxFAP), something for which I would not have had time while working, and I am still on Nominations Committee.
My ongoing challenge will be to find that ‘still small voice of peace’, to allow time in the midst of plentiful tasks for spiritual refreshment and growth. I have perhaps been unconsciously avoiding the leisureliness that Caroline Graveson described. Perhaps a gentler pace and fewer structured activities will help, ‘for peace comes dropping slow’ (WB Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree).
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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 512 • December 2021
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW