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***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Well, yesterday (Wednesday, 30 June 2021) was my last day as a member of the active faculty at Brigham Young University.\u00a0 As I understand it, my retirement became effective at midnight, Utah time.\u00a0 (Which, coincidentally, is equivalent to midnight Montana time.)\u00a0 Happily, since I wasn\u2019t scheduled to teach during the spring term and had no remaining committee assignments, I\u2019ve been free to be up here at Yellowstone National Park.\u00a0 We had a good day yesterday along the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and Yellowstone Lake and several beautiful rivers and among various meadows, geysers, fumaroles, and paint pots.\u00a0 We saw numerous elk and bison and innumerable geese and ducks, as well as one deer (a doe, a female deer), and three chipmunks.\u00a0 Most of the elk were cows and calves, of course, but we also saw several bucks, including two quite large specimens with really impressive antler racks, one of them directly beside the road.\u00a0 One large bison bull crossed the road right behind us.\u00a0 I saw him only at the last moment as he was coming rather quickly down a slope toward us, and I wondered for a few seconds whether he might even collide with our car.\u00a0 A good day.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Today was a day for reflection, too.\u00a0 Just a few years ago, I was utterly appalled at even the thought<\/em> of retirement.\u00a0 Suddenly, though, about two years ago, retirement lost its repulsiveness.\u00a0 And now the time seems fully right.\u00a0 But it\u2019s still a bit sad.\u00a0 I fell in love with Brigham Young University when I was about fifteen.\u00a0 I earned my undergraduate degree at BYU.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been a member of the BYU faculty for the past thirty-six years.\u00a0 It\u2019s astonishing to realize that, in some ways, it\u2019s coming to an end.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always been acutely aware of the transience of things.\u00a0 Beautiful gardens remind me of how quickly flowers fade.\u00a0 Historic palaces and mansions remind me of how briefly their builders inhabited them.\u00a0 And, since my very first reading of Jacob 7:26, it has stayed in my mind:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And it came to pass that I, Jacob, began to be old; and the record of this people being kept on the other plates\u00a0of Nephi, wherefore, I conclude this record, declaring that I have written according to the best of my knowledge, by saying that the time passed away with us, and also our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream, we being a lonesome\u00a0and a solemn people, wanderers,\u00a0\u00a0cast out from Jerusalem, born in tribulation, in a wilderness, and hated of our brethren, which caused wars and contentions; wherefore, we did mourn out our days.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019m not lonesome or hated by my brethren.\u00a0 I experienced an extraordinarily painful bout of academic politics in 2012, the most acute and unexpected betrayal I\u2019ve ever personally known, but\u00a0 I have always been blessed with many friends, and I\u2019ve gotten along well with the vast majority of those around me.\u00a0 Moreover, although I\u2019m more serious than I may often outwardly seem, I wouldn\u2019t consider myself particularly solemn.\u00a0 Beyond that, I wasn\u2019t born in tribulation and I haven\u2019t been \u201ccast out.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ve been involved in far more contention than I would have liked, but I\u2019m pretty serene and I\u2019m very, very seldom angry.\u00a0 However,\u00a0I can<\/em> say that, in a manner of speaking, the time has passed away with me \u201clike as it were . . . a dream.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s astonishing and unexpected to be so old, to be so far along in life.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n A few months ago, I rewatched the 1969 film Goodbye, Mr. Chips<\/em>.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t seen it since my first encounter with it back during my freshman year at BYU or thereabouts.\u00a0 But I was very fond of it then, and I liked it the second time, as well.\u00a0 Tonight, I\u2019ve thought of one of the songs from it, written and sung by Petula Clark:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In the morning of my life I shall look to the sunrise.<\/strong><\/span> (Chorus)<\/strong><\/span> In the noontime of my life I shall look to the sunshine,<\/strong><\/span> (Chorus)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n In the evening of my life I shall look to the sunset,<\/strong><\/span> \u00a0<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not Petula Clark\u2019s rendition of which I\u2019m thinking.\u00a0 It\u2019s Peter O\u2019Toole\u2019s much less showy and rather less musical one<\/a> at the end of the film, as his long tenure as a classics teacher at Brookfield School comes to its end and he reflects back upon his years there.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n However,\u00a0 the conclusion of my active career at Brigham Young University on 30 June 2021 wasn\u2019t the only cause for meditation on Wednesday.\u00a0 My father passed away on 30 June 2003, just a few weeks short of his ninetieth birthday.\u00a0 It\u2019s been eighteen years, but it doesn\u2019t seem that long to me.\u00a0 I still miss him, and I think about him very nearly every day.\u00a0 I thought about him while traveling around Yellowstone.\u00a0 I have only a few vague memories of the first time that he and my mother brought me here, but they\u2019re warm ones.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I won\u2019t, of course, be entirely<\/em> severing my ties with BYU.\u00a0 As an emeritus professor, I\u2019ll still have some privileges there and some connections, and I\u2019m delighted with that.\u00a0 Moreover, I haven\u2019t fully lost my distaste for the idea of retirement.\u00a0 I will continue, so long as health permits (and, by the way, I have no particular concerns on that score), to be very active on a number of fronts.\u00a0 (In the short term, for instance, there\u2019s still quite a bit to be done on the Witnesses film project.\u00a0 But that\u2019s just a part of what I have in mind.\u00a0 The major reason for my wanting to retire is my hope and desire to write<\/em>.\u00a0 I have a host<\/em> of\u00a0 projects that I want to get underway.)\u00a0 One entertaining critic has been predicting for several months now that, once I\u2019m no longer on the payroll of BYU and paid to do apologetics \u2014 it\u2019s been quite futile, apparently, for me to point out, over and over and over again, that I\u2019ve never<\/em> been paid to do apologetics \u2014 I\u2019ll back away from such things.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Well, we shall see, shan\u2019t we?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In the meanwhile, I\u2019m extremely excited to announce the launch of a series of blog entries on the Interpreter Foundation website.\u00a0 It\u2019s something to which I\u2019ve been looking forward for many months:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAt a moment in my life when the world is new.<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnd the blessing I shall ask is that God will grant me,<\/strong><\/span>
\nTo be brave and strong and true,<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnd to fill the world with love my whole life through.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n
\nAnd to fill the world with love<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnd to fill the world with love<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnd to fill the world with love my whole life through<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n
\nAt a moment in my life when the sky is blue.<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnd the blessing I shall ask shall remain unchanging.<\/strong><\/span>
\nTo be brave and strong and true,<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnd to fill the world with love my whole life through<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n
\nAt a moment in my life when the night is due.<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnd the question I shall ask only I can answer.<\/strong><\/span>
\nWas I brave and strong and true?<\/strong><\/span>
\nDid I fill the world with love my whole life through?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n