Closing a Chapter

Welcome to the first of a 4-part series on professional endings.

It’s summer here in the Northern Hemisphere and I’m thinking about transitions. That terrain where one thing ends and something else begins.

Last month, most school doors opened, spilling children out into a seasonal recess. The summer solstice wheeled by and carried us past the longest day.

June also marked the formal retirement of a handful of my friends. Several of them were Unitarian Universalist ministers, some leaving congregations they served for over twenty years. Another friend retired from her 30+ year career as a nurse midwife.

Each of them removed the mantle of a professional identity, literally—in the case of a minister’s robe and a nurse midwife’s scrubs—and metaphorically. No longer holding an obvious answer to the omnipresent meeting-a-new-person-question “What do you do?”

2024 marked the year I officially retired from the professional Unitarian Universalist ministry.

My retirement involved some administrative actions and a communal collegial ritual on zoom, but it was largely an internal experience.

The retirement transition happened within me over eight months—but I wasn’t a solo traveler. Key conversations with friends and colleagues became turning points on a map that didn’t exist until the journey ended.

Sticking with the travel metaphor, over the next four weeks, Marking What Matters is a trip report of an internal expedition to a professional end. It’s a tale about self-identity, vocation, regrets, making peace with what was (and wasn’t) and with what is. Also, there’s a beeswax Buddha and a little bit of fire.

This week: Closing a Chapter
Part 2: Ghost Ships, Grief & Gratitude
Part 3: How it Ends Isn’t the Whole Thing
Part 4: Letting the Candle Burn

I felt professionally adrift.

It was 2023. My kids had graduated high school. I was officially an empty nester.

A couple years before, I helped organize the annual celebration of Unitarian Universalist ministers—like myself—who were celebrating the 25th anniversary of their ordination¹. Each participant made a short video about a meaningful connection to that threshold event. It was a rich exercise, recalling what marked the beginning of my ministry in a religious tradition that raised me up.

It was also slightly bonkers because, you know, how does 25 years go by so quickly?

But now I felt adrift.

That 1996 ordination service set me forth on a path. I followed it—and the many ministers who traveled it before me. Preachers, pastors and prophets. I was twenty-nine years old and believed I had a pretty clear view of way unfolding before me.

Five years later, when I left full-time congregational ministry I stepped off of the wide, well-trod path and turned onto a narrower trail with a fair amount of ground cover. It was obvious far fewer souls traveled this path, but the way was still clear.

Now a parent of twins, I mentored students and supervised interns during ministerial sabbaticals. I served on denominational panels. Every day I knew I was a primary parent of small humans. I worked hard to remind myself—and others—that I was also a practicing minister.

Years passed. Children grew. My ministry focused on end-of-life concerns and rituals but, increasingly, in non-Unitarian Universalist spaces. Living in one of the most secular areas of the US, I wondered about the folks who don’t have a religious community, who identify as a “none of the above” or “spiritual but religious.” When a death occurs, who accompanies them? Who guides the death rituals?

Holding these questions, I left the path for a barely visible game trail.

Now, in 2023, I was standing in a field of high grasses and keenly aware that the very wide, well-trod path I left years ago lay somewhere in a far distance, out of view.

I felt the weight of collegial responsibilities I wasn’t living up to. Witnessing colleagues offering powerful congregational and community ministries, I felt admiration and a tinge of envy. But where I’d earlier heard a call to that work, now there was silence.

I felt stuck in an in-between place. Unwilling to find my way back to the well-trod path but also unsure where to go.

---

My friend and sister-minister Sarah was first person who uttered the word “retirement” out loud to me.

We met for coffee and walnut scones at a high-ceilinged, white-walled cafe. Sitting in the front window, the busy foot traffic enlivening the view, I told her my tale. I described feeling simultaneously adrift and stuck. A metaphorical marvel.

At some point in the conversation, she asked “Do you know Kelly Mason? Jesse French²? She’s a colleague in the New England Region?”

Lifting the coffee mug, I shook my head.

“About our age. Maybe a little younger. And recently retired.”

My eyes got wide.

“Really? Why?”

She nodded. “Kelly would have to answer that — but if you’re interested, I sure she’d be glad to talk with you. Do you want me to connect you?”

We spoke on the phone just before Thanksgiving. Kelly was driving home from work, her voice slightly echoing on speaker phone. I sat at my desk, watching squirrels move nimbly along the gnarled branch of a large Oak tree while we talked.

Our conversation lasted at least a half-hour but what I remember was Kelly’s one question and one command.

The question: Is your professional denominational commitment part of your history or your future?

The command: “Don’t slink away.”

When I heard those last three words I gasped. Then I laughed.

“I was seriously considering that,” I confessed.

Before our call I did some research. My denomination’s retirement process was pretty simple and straightforward. But the paperwork asked a couple question about publicly recognizing the retirement. And one possible answer was “I do not wish to be recognized.”

Slinking away—disappearing—was a real option.

“Don’t do it,” Kelly repeated.

“I get the impulse. But honor your ministry, your service, your call. It matters."

---

Some big questions are simple. And the answer arrives swiftly and surely.

Is your professional denominational commitment part of your history or your future?

It’s part of my history.

I love this religious tradition I was raised in, that shaped me. I have love and respect for my colleagues and the congregants I’d served and worked with. And I know serving as a minister in a Unitarian Universalist setting is not my future. That chapter is closed.

Don’t slink away.

How could I encourage memorial services and mourning rituals as important parts of integrating a loss—and then ghost the end of my career?

---

Seven weeks after Kelly and I spoke on the phone, I completed the online form indicating my intention to retire from the professional Unitarian Universalist ministry.

When asked to enter the date of retirement, I typed “March 21, 2024.” The vernal equinox. It seemed fitting for an ending and a beginning.

When asked about being publicly recognized, I didn’t choose the slink-away option. But it took some time and some tender conversations to get there. More on that next week in “Ghost Ships, Grief & Gratitude.”

Is it the past or is it the future? To stay or to go. To end or to continue. To begin. What or who has helped you decide? What helps you (re) discover what you know? Or, perhaps something else you want to share. I hope you feel free to leave a comment.

Thank you for reading Marking What Matters. I appreciate it a lot.

Until next week,

Rachel

p.s. I like asking questions to continue the conversation. Many folks read MWM in their inbox and to leave a comment requires signing in to Substack, etc. It’s cumbersome. Some of you have apologized privately for not leaving a comment. You wanted to—but, you know—it’s a hassle. I get it. It is.

Here’s what I’d like to say about the questions and the comments. Do whatever you will with the questions. If they spark something in you & navigating the platform is a PITA, share your answer with someone close to you. Ask the question of them. Maybe the question is a doorway into a new conversation. And if you’d like to leave a comment here, I’m always glad to read it.

1. Ordination is a formal recognition of a minister’s authority. In the UU tradition, congregations confer that authority, usually in a special worship service.

2. In the original version, I created “Jesse French“ as a stand-in for the very real Kelly Mason, PsyD, MS, LICSW. It was only after I clicked “Share” on the post that I thought to write Kelly and ask if I could give her the credit that she—and not the fictitious “Jesse French”—deserved! I’m very glad to offer Kelly a public thanks. Her question and command was powerful counsel.