I’m thinking of putting up a sign like this in front of my house, except the reverse— House Not for Sale. Haunted!! I don’t know about you but I am now almighty tired of endless phone calls by huxters and hustlers from all over the world trying to get me to buy more medical insurance, or invest in their scam, or worse— they are offering to buy my house for cash. There have been phone calls, letters in the mail, people knocking at my front door and trying to get me to decide on the spot about large matters, and I’ve even been trolled by firemen and policemen on the phone. In regard to the latter, they want an instant pledge to support some cause they are sponsoring, and they will not simply send me information, let my wife and I discuss the matter and pray about it and then make a decision. Oh no, they want an instant pledge over the phone. As Hall and Oates once said–“I can’t go for that, NOOOOOO, no can do!” (sing along with me).
Many of these sales persons have crossed so many lines its pathetic— the line of politeness, courteous discussion, identifying who they are and what their credentials are, leaving the decision up to me without getting irate, or incredibly pushy and insulting. So all you spam risk people so identified by my phone who keep showing up—-give it a rest. I’m not now or ever playing along with your little game. And by the way, to the many of you who are assuming I’m retired, I’m not. I don’t need supplemental income, supplemental health or property or car insurance. I’m still working full time. And as the President of my school has recently reminded me— retirement is not in the Bible! Rest is in the Bible, retirement is not. I once put up a cartoon on my door at school that read as follows—
It shows a professor behind a desk piled high with papers to read and grade and says ‘I’m quite sure God will not let me die anytime soon, as I still have so much still to do’.
And then there is this. I’ve often participated in Duke’s clergy health initiative survey. It has various sections, but what is alarming is not so much the survey, but the regular results of the survey. A staggering number of ministers, a high percentage in fact, are dead within five years of their retirement. Yes, some are just worn out preachers, but one of the results of the survey shows that so often ministers have so defined who they are by what they’ve been doing for the Gospel, that when they stop doing those things, they completely lose their sense of purpose or usefulness, and give way to despair, even asking if it was all worthwhile. And then they died…… Not me baby. ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, said Dylan Thomas…..
Enough said.
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