The Janus Post

Janus is the Roman God of transitions.  He is usually depicted as having two faces – one looking forward and one looking backward.  The month of January is usually considered as having been named for Janus as we transition from the old year to the new.  Invoking Janus gives us an opportunity to reflect on the year just ended and consider what the New Year may hold for us.  So let’s take a look backward and then consider the year to come.

2016

1. General:  This was my fourth full year as a retiree.  A friend who is about my age and still working told me he didn’t want to retire because he is afraid he’ll be bored.  I told him there hasn’t been a day – even an hour – when I’ve been bored since I retired.  Maybe that’s because I never felt retirement was an end, but rather a new beginning. In other words, I was just changing jobs.  And my new job got really busy in 2016.
2. Family Transitions:  More than any year since I retired, 2016 was a year of many transitions for our family.  My wife and I had always thought about moving east at some point when we were both retired.  Our daughter lives in West Chester, PA and our oldest son lives in New York City, so we’ve felt a definite pull eastward.  But where would that take us?  Our daughter started sending us information about homes near hers in January and claimed to have found the perfect home for us by early February.  We haven’t always agreed with our daughter, but when we drove out to see the house, we had to agree it was just right for us.  But even after we bought it, we weren’t sure when we would move into it.   My wife didn’t think she was ready to retire from teaching, so we considered renting it out for a year or two until we were ready for a major move.  But when our daughter told us she was expecting, that changed everything.  My wife now couldn’t wait to retire, and we started moving our stuff into the new house.  By the time our grandson, Haven Joseph, was born in late October, we were about 80% moved in.  To help ease the transition, our youngest son moved back into our house in Pittsburgh.  That will allow us to more slowly pull up roots from the home we’ve occupied for the past 33 years.  If a new home, new retirement, new grandson and a son moving back in with us weren’t enough transition, our oldest son got married in 2016.  Their July wedding in Pittsburgh turned out to be perfect.  So we were blessed with the addition of a new daughter-in-law and a grandson as our family expanded by two during the year. 
3. Volunteer Transitions:  When I “changed jobs” 4½ years ago, I liked to joke that I was working just as hard, but getting paid a lot less, i.e., nothing.  Such is the nature of being a volunteer.  My second, 3-year term on the PICT Classic Theatre Board of Directors ended in 2016.  While I love what PICT does and enjoyed working with its staff and my fellow Board members, I felt it was time to step down after 6 years.  Our planned move to West Chester gave me a good excuse to not seek a third term on the Board.  The end of 2016 also marked the end of my 8-year service on the Board of Trustees of the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh.  I served as the Trustee’s President for the past three years.  While it sometimes felt like a full-time job, working with Bishop McConnell, Diocesan staff and the other Board members was extremely rewarding and an experience I will miss.  For three school years, I volunteered for the Everybody Wins program at Phillips Elementary School on Pittsburgh’s Southside.  EW encourages literacy by attempting to instill a love of reading in 2^nd and 3^rd graders who are paired with adult volunteer Reading Buddies.  I enjoyed reading with Dylan and Julian and hope our time together opened a gateway to a lifetime of pleasure through reading and I will miss volunteering in that program.  As a volunteer at Linden Elementary School where my wife taught, I coached a team of 4^th and 5^th graders who participated in Book Battle, where kids competed for prizes by answering questions about books they read together.  I also assisted as a moderator for the school’s Spelling Bee.   Finally, at my church, I continued serving as a Lay Eucharistic Minister, as the mentor for the church’s acolyte program, as the instructor for confirmation class, and as editor of the church’s newsletter where I contributed articles for each issue.
4. Writing Transitions:  Besides writing for our church’s newsletter, I wrote a poem for our church’s observance of Patriot Day.  Our priest also commissioned me to write an updated version of The Nicene Creed that contained language more accessible to the children and youth of our parish.  It was reviewed and approved by our Bishop, so I don’t have to feel guilty of blasphemy for rewriting such a significant, historic document.  I was disappointed that I only wrote five posts for my blog, but I started several longer projects that show promise as works I may eventually try to publish.  I also joined a small group of local writers (South Hills Creative Writing Group) that meet weekly at the local branch of the library.  I credit that group with being patient enough to review and comment on what I am writing and encouraging me to continue pursuing this craft.  Reading is a key part of writing and even with so much going on in 2016, I was able to find the time to read 25 books.

2017

1. Family Transitions:  I look forward to completing our move to West Chester this year.  Our grandson’s baptism is being planned for April 15, and we hope our move will be pretty much completed by then.  After that, we still expect to travel to Pittsburgh to see our son and other friends and family, but anticipate that our time in Pittsburgh will continue to decrease through the rest of the year. 
2. Volunteer Transition:  Over the next few months, I plan to hand off my remaining volunteer activities at our church in Pittsburgh.  As I transition to West Chester, I plan to be very selective about taking on new volunteer commitments.  In fact, I would like to make 2017 a year in which I bide my time in terms of considering any new volunteer opportunities that come my way.  If I am active in volunteering for anything, it will likely be to resist the changes in policy anticipated from the new administration in Washington.  I am particularly concerned about efforts to undermine progress in fighting climate change, and will look hard at possible volunteer opportunities in this area.
3. Writing Transition:   With fewer volunteer commitments, I am hopeful that I can finally devote a great deal of my time to writing.  This was the reason I retired early, though I’ve often felt that the years since I retired were too full of distractions that prevented me from writing.  But to be honest, I have written a great deal more over these past few years than I certainly would have written if I’d continued working.  But my hope for 2017 is to inventory what I’ve written so far and make efforts to publish some of it.  In terms of new writing, I hope to be active in both storytelling as well as writing to change the world for the better.                                

So there’s a look at where I’ve been in 2016 and where I hope I’m going in this New Year.  I hope Janus and all the other gods will continue to look on me with favor in this and future years.