LATE LIFE MANIFESTO

I suspected it would be true: the less time I have, the more precious it is.

I never dreamed that I would embrace my latter years as much as I am. Even as I am facing life without my husband and as I face diminishing physical ability the sand that is left in the top of my hourglass keeps me focused, intententional, and grateful.

I am by nature a disciplined and organized person. I pay attention to how I am living. To what is fueling what I am doing. To my values. To what I am contributing. My energy is precious and vital to me. I know that it contributes to the greater good of the whole when I am aligned with my Soul priorities.

I have for many years had a personal manifesto. A type of constitution for how I live and operate. I let it govern me to the best of my ability.

My manifesto is a living document. I use it, access it in decision making. It is fluid and changeable when I feel as if I have outgrown one of my precepts. It is permeated with prayer. In fact, it is a prayer.

In a world that has become so chaotic and disruptive my manifesto is more important than ever. It is my invariant constant in a stormy world. It is a beacon in such intense darkness. Regardless of all the insanity around me my manifesto helps keep me grounded and anchored. Stable. Centered.

I will not get into the specifics of my personal document. I do believe it is evident by how I live. At least that is my goal. And it is one of the few goals that remain for me.

Achievement and success are truly no longer important for me. I have climbed enough mountains and crossed enough bridges. I have done enough. That does not mean I will sit and stare for the duration. It means for me that how I do things is way more consequential than what I am doing.

I am content to do way less yet with more focus and intention. My activity level is considerably less that in previous years. When I go somewhere I am very mindful of the energy I bring to the space I am in. How I treat others, both internally and interactionally. I want to leave space better than I found it.

And with less years ahead the urgency for contribution is amplified. Not in an ambitious sense. The urgency isn’t drive. It is a vitality that moves me through my days and helps me select what is most worthy of engagement. I don’t have time to waste. And how I spend my time is often directly shaped by my manifesto. By my priorities.

I am mindful these days that my next birthday will be my seventieth. I am still nine months off. Yet it has prompted me to do an even deeper dive into my current manifesto, and to determine where some updating may be in order.

I love the process! I love deeper dives. I relish giving time and attention to the things and processes that are most precious and important to me. And I celebrate that I am at a place in life where while my manifesto is a document of personal choice it is dedicated to something much larger than me.

I offer the remainder of my days to be dedicated to the collective more than to my individual goals or wants. I intend to die having fulfilled my purpose. I would love to think I leave having given more than I have taken. I want to be a man of my word. A beneficial presence upon this planet. And my manifesto guides me in that pursuit.

This late life revision could well be my last. I will continue to tweak. Yet I am poised to pray and to intuit how I will live the remainder of my days, weeks, months, years. I cannot know and am frankly not all that concerned with the duration.

It is the quality of contribution that matters most to me. I did some silly and unskillful things earlier in my life. I was focused on things that seem so inconsequential now. Yet it took what it took. If that chaos was necessary to bring me to where I am today, then so be it.

It is a late life manifesto. I am giving myself ample time to steep and to pray it into being. I trust my intuition impeccably. I listen relentlessly to the call of my heart. I open to guidance and I let it govern me.

And I know I can face anything that happens in these latter years of my life. With faith in my heart and my manifesto in my mind I have confidence that the rest of my years can be the best of years.

And it is because I say it is.

RETIRING DANCER

I have been dancing with retiring in ways that feel like my retirement from dancing.

I am a former musical theatre performer that left the stage in 1995. My training was in vocal performance, acting, and dance. Of those three disciplines it was dance that most captivated my creative imagination.

I did not begin formal dance training until I went to college. My parents did not want a son that danced. I was not permitted to take lessons until I went to school which I paid for. And so let the training begin.

By the time I was twenty I had already had each knee surgically repaired. This was not directly traceable to dance, though it was debated. My mother accompanied me to an orthopedic appointment where she applied her son-dance aversion to my medical condition. She presented her evidence for my dance cessation to the orthopedic surgeon. She had every confidence he would concur.

He did not.

The doctor shifted his focus from her to me.

“Do you love dancing?”

“I do.”

“Then keep at it as long as you possibly can.”

And I did.

Professional dancers know that our “life expectancy” on the stage is limited. Mine was shorter than most. But I loved every grand jete and every shuffle ball change. I was in my bliss when I was dancing in the studio and especially on stage. While I had frequent knee pain I pushed right through it until I simply couldn’t.

And so, I am a retired dancer.

I stopped acting and singing professionally at the same time. Without dancing I didn’t have my mojo. I did some television and film work while I was in my clinical training, a transition from performer to therapist and eventually clergy. The final traces of my entertainment career were concurrent to my seminary work. I moved out of New York with a clinical credential and was ordained shortly after.

I was formally retired at age thirty-eight.

And a whole new stage of professional life opened before me.

Since retiring from dance, I have worked full-time in the ministry for thirty-one years. As much as I love the performing arts and dance, I know it is ministry that is the true calling of my life. I feel deeply connected to and live from what is truest and deepest within my heart. And my “tasks” are various expressions of that internal moving flow. I often marvel that I am paid for being what I authentically am and then sharing that with others. I daily put feet on my spiritual practice. I tap into my creative impulses and then channel my inspiration into words and other ways of relating.

I have been the full-time leader of a spiritual community for over twelve years. While I began ministry as an independent contractor I felt inspired to agree to a more structured role for what I thought would be a relatively short period of time.

Many dramatic and even disturbing things have occurred for me personally during my tenure as a senior minister. This culminated late last year with the passing of my husband.

As a result, I have been dancing with the idea of retirement. Again.

I retired from dancing, and now I am dancing with retirement.

Most days this contemplation is an easy waltz that does not yet lead me off the dance floor of my profession. I can still move with the music of my heart. I can keep up. I am admittedly slower when I move. Yet the passion in my heart is as vibrant as ever. I sit while I lecture. Yet my vital energy is standing strong.

And I am aware that my general pace is slower and I am physically able to do less than in previous years. It feels like a very real example of “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The years of forcing my dance have taken a toll. I do not regret it. Yet I ponder how much longer I can maintain the pace of fulltime employment. While I am currently not feeling a definitive “stop” the body symptoms are clearly having a say.

I am clear that I feel no motivation to build a big community that I would then need to maintain. My focus is on touching and reaching one heart at a time. I feel compelled to channel decades of spiritual exploration and put it into forms and words that may benefit others. It is what I am doing as I type these words. I am pointing to something universal when I speak of my individual experience. Bodies often weaken even as our spirit strengthens and soars.

Ours is a doing culture. Success is seen as active achievement. Busyness is a badge of honor. Do. Do. Do. Stay relevant. Measurable. Do even more. Then tell about it. Take pictures of it. Post it. Build even more upon it.

I am personally called less by doing. My heart and my spirit are vibrating at the frequency of being. Much if not most of what is most important to me is not measurable or seen by the world as achievement. It is slow. Intangible. Etheric. I used to love leaping across a stage to a fast-paced crescendo of music. I am now sweetly content to sway to the serenade of my Soul. I then invite you to sway with me.

There will always be a dancer in my imaginary self. And there will always be a minister as my highest form of expression.

I embrace my slowing down. I celebrate that I have survived the past several years, and that I am spiritually stronger and more centered as a result. I dance with the notion that perhaps rather than retiring from my current position I can retire from the demands I place upon myself in terms of how much I do. How much output I can measure.

I dance with the truth that I have thirty years of experience of platform speaking. Individual and group counseling. Workshop presentation. Writing. I have earned the right to slow down a bit. I can allow my expansive being to take form as less doing than in past years. Slow dancing is still dancing. Inspiration does not take muscle. Practice, yes. Muscle, no.

So, for today I am giving to you this pondering on dance and retirement. I retired from dance, and I dance with the possibility of retiring again. It will not be happening today. I have sat in my chair to compose this offering. No warmup required and no sweat induced.

Yet I pray you can feel the music of my heart and the swaying of my spirit. I hope you will dance with me and that you will glean something that will lead you in your own explorations.

Life is indeed a dance. Will you let It lead?