Over the past few years I have spent some time with a variety of people who are over sixty five and mostly officially retired. As I listened to their stories I regularly heard some struggles. These have to do with a loss of purpose, a dwindling sense of achievement and usefulness, loneliness and a desire to find an answer to the question, ‘Who am I now?’ Underneath these struggles I detected a longing for a spirituality that will provide meaning and connection at a new stage in life.
In this article I would like to offer a spiritual path for those in retirement. I am of course aware that retirement can happen at different ages. For most people it occurs around the mid-sixties, while for clergy and religious it is usually much later.