Retirement Planning
Retirement planning
may feel like civilian re-entry planning
as from-above ballistics continue heavy incoming
so persuasively my objective is not to win outside
but to get home safe again,
although I sadly know
home will never be that home of memory sustained
as comparative compass for peace resiliently regained.
What is my therapeutic vocational problem
retiring from front-line maddening trenches?
How much remaining spacetime do I have,
does Earth have, for living rather than dying,
and why does this feel so spare time
often mere despairing,
and why "spare"
and why "mere"?
Despite books and perhaps entire libraries on human purpose,
meaning,
ethology of nature,
callings for proper industry,
organic integrity of humane function,
whether blessed by divine inspiration
or mere humane perspiration
(and, again, why "mere"?)
I find too precious
this my footnote of non-historic proportion
that my vocation may not truly ever self-optimize
through individual ongoing autonomous discernment,
But also through healthier, more robust, fabric
interdependent
cooperative
democratically woven
of loving WinWin future society
CoDefining culture having let go of refining Win/Lose
evolutionary violence investment theories
in favor of overwhelming healthy
regenerative retiring revolutions
of Earth's slower-grown WinWin therapies.
This is not Weber's mechanical society;
Retiring histories are more mysteriously woven
like an organic beehive
ornamenting a strong-rooted universal tree,
or an ant colony
preparing for winter
within an ancient-grounded sanctuary society
for future multiculturing
creolizing enchanted colonies.
What happens when we retire
into a newly autonomous vocational choice?
When all prior spacetime investments
appear to have been apprenticeships
toward what?
Dying?
Living with more freedom
for integrity
and WiseElder slow-grown discernment?
We are so hard-pressed to say
and do
and be wise serpents for internal and external peace
when all our training has been for Win/Lose crucifying battles
I struggle to prepare for extending family love
in ever more autonomous isolation
from new life invitations.
What does my environment,
our climate,
my climatic experience,
our story about communal health development
still respect
and hope for loving, yet active, peace?
How do we call and gather elders together
to restore this profoundly interactive peace
inside as outside as inside
Earth's justice
re-uniting integrity
toward universal love
and away from nationalistic tribalistic violent hate?
Where do secular models
and sacred maps
together tipping point
toward personal
and political
and economic
and ecological
and theological healthy meaning
today,
rooted in all our civilian yesterdays
with hope for this next regeneration
already waiting within these aging bones
and eyes for climate healing
within
as without,
below
as above,
inhaling old impoverished retributions
exhaling new health restorations
peaceful home
Retiring developments of active hope,
remaining positive energy,
non-violent doing,
being,
communicating,
praying,
experiencing,
medicating,
meditating,
healing,
living to continue breathing in
dying to breath enrichment out once more.
Copyright ©
Gerald Dillenbeck
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