Mondays, 12:30 pm–2:30 pm CT
Who are you and who do you want to be as you retire? How do you want to enter your Third Act?
Many of us have been privileged to enjoy long, stimulating, and maybe even impactful careers, as ministers, in the social sector, or otherwise. Our work has brought us economic benefits, and it has helped to shape our sense of who we are. As we transition from full-time paid work to some form of retirement, it’s good to look back on what we’ve accomplished and it’s good to look ahead to our third act.
This time of transition can be liberating. We have come through many of the challenges of life and we hope we’re looking back on what we’ve accomplished with a sense of satisfaction. And we hope we’re looking forward to the Third Act with excitement and a sense of liberation. But maybe also with a little bit of fear or anxiety.
This time and space together will allow us to explore in depth four questions:
The course will be offered over two semesters, meeting synchronously every other week from late August through early December, and then again from late January through early May. Synchronous sessions will be held over Zoom and provide an opportunity to share our reflections on where we are, what we’ve read and journaled about, and what this next part of life is for. In the non-synchronous weeks there are reading assignments (often paired with a video option for those who prefer other means of learning), exercises, reflection questions, and time to unpack the previous week’s conversations. The spacious design is meant to give us all the time we need to reflect on this major transition, and to sort through all the bending and molding we’ve done in our working lives to meet the needs of others, and who we want to be now that we are only ourselves.
This class is meant for those who have recently retired, or who are very much about to. It includes spiritual and theological reflection but is not intended only for retiring clergy. It is for all of us for whom these questions of meaning are important, especially as we age.
Co-sponsored by The Garrett Collective.
This course is designed to stretch out over nine months for the luxury of thinking over time. The central reading is a book by Lisbeth Lipari called Listening, Being, Thinking, which gives us a chance to think about sounds, silences, speaking, and listening in a fresh way now that we are not so much the ones at the front of the room. For many of us work is most of what we can remember about ourselves, but it is likely not the most important thing about us.
In a cohort of those similarly situated we will recover parts of ourselves that may have been dormant in our working years. We’ll think about the gift of time that retirement brings. We’ll consider new ways of understanding what community we’re in, and how we could contribute to it as elders. Taking this time will allow you to put a brake on overcommitting new things too soon. It will help you to know who you are now, and therefore how you want to be in the world in the time that remains.
Cohort will meet every other week on Mondays, 12:30–2:30 pm CT, and asynchronous homework on other weeks.
The topic covered on each date is as follows:
Silence after speaking/Speaking after silence
Asynchronous week – Listening, Thinking, Being by Lisbeth Lipari, chapters 1-2
Identity without work
Asynchronous week – Listening, Thinking, Being chapters 6-7
Identity is a form of meaning
Asynchronous week – Listening, Thinking, Being chapter 8
Disappointment
Asynchronous week – This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley
Relationships in later life
Asynchronous week – I and Thou
Losses
Asynchronous week – Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
The end is the same for all of us
Asynchronous week – A Carnival of Losses by Donald Hall
Summing up together
The God of your understanding
Asynchronous week – Psychoanalysis and Religion by Erich Fromm
Guest Speaker, Mike Hogue: The role of faith in your life
Asynchronous week – Love at the Center, edited by Sophia Betancourt
Sharing what you chose to read from Love at the Center
Asynchronous week – The Present Age by Soren Kierkegaard
The Leap and the Fall
Asynchronous week – Who are you for others?
Embracing Disruptive Coherence
Asynchronous week – Letting go of fears
Apprenticing as an elder
Asynchronous week – Map your community
Through another’s eyes
Asynchronous week – Make a plan
Summing up and concluding
Rev. Dr. Clare Butterfield has been many things in her life and career: consultant, spiritual director, foundation director, founder and director of Faith in Place, lawyer, UU minister, spouse, mother, volunteer, do-er of laundry, maker of dinner (in no particular order of importance). She is newly retired herself, and eager for conversation partners in the Third Act of life.