Reflections on retirement: do nothing for at least 10 minutes a day

The pocket Oxford dictionary definition for 'retire' is: '1 leave office or employment, esp. because of age; 2 withdraw, go away, retreat; 3 seek seclusion or shelter; 4 go to bed'.

After 26 years with CIIR (now Progressio) I left 'office or employment esp. because of age' on 1 May, an event that was marked by the staff with a wonderful lunch in the patio of the pub next door. I am now embarked on the rest of my life, and am not doing 2 or 3, and only doing 4 at the usual times.

I have found a little book by Winston Churchill, 'Painting as a pastime', inspiring and useful. He tells of the enormous change that his departure from the Admiralty brought at the end of May 1915, and how it was 'that the muse of painting came to my rescue'. He bought a complete kit for painting in oils and it changed the way he looked at the world. He said: 'I think this heightened sense of observation of nature is one of the chief delights that have come to me through trying to paint…the whole world is open with all its treasures. The simplest objects have their beauty'. To put his suggestion into practice, I have taken up watercolour painting, and have indeed discovered that the 'simplest objects have their beauty'. Churchill also recommends reading, and if you cannot read all your books he says: 'at any rate handle them and, as it were, fondle them. Peer into them. Let them fall open where they will…make a voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas'.      

The Anglican Bishop of Reading, Stephen Cottrell, has recently brought out a little book, 'Do nothing to change your life: discovering what happens when you stop'. All those caught up in the hectic pace of modern life, and not only the retirees, will find wisdom and practical advice here. Chapter 2, 'The absolute necessity of becoming eccentric', opens with a quote from Robin Williams: 'You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it'. In Chapter 4, 'The scandalous hospitality of God', the Bishop says: 'There is a creativity that arises from leisure and restfulness. There is a hunger within us for meaning, and an unstoppable compulsion to try and explain and to create and recreate the world around us. And alongside this hunger a gnawing emptiness. When you find the time to stop and stare, you encounter an unaccountable "something" that nothing else can quite explain. What is this "something"? What is the centre around which my life can flourish?'. Just trying to find an answer to this question will keep us busy and start us on a real 'voyage of discovery, taking soundings of uncharted seas'.

It's amazingly simple: stop, do nothing for at least for ten minutes a day, and as the Bishop says: 'reconnect with a hiddenness inside ourselves where rest and play issue forth in all sorts of wild, unexpected and creative ways'.

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