Retirement brings the happy possibility of doing ministry for the love of ministry with the added bonus of more free time for other interests. One can enjoy being part of the institutional church, but one also has the greater freedom of living one’s faith with a new freedom from responsibilities and a great sense of personal choice.

Retirement, for me, is proving to be a marvellous, creative and expansive time.

Last fall, retired bishops of southern Ontario and their spouses met for a day at Renison College in Waterloo. The event provided an opportunity for renewing acquaintances, catching up on personal lives in retirement, sharing stories and concerns, going to Eucharist and having a meal together.

Many of us, while enjoying a release from the administrative responsibilities of episcopal life, missed the social interaction that our more structured lives had now led us to. This day together helped bridge that gap.

It was interesting to learn where we had chosen to live, the type of housing we had procured, the health concerns that some were experiencing and the work and hobbies that were being enjoyed.

It was also an eye-opener to be brought up to date on the multitude of activities open to us despite being officially retired. Some among us, including myself, were assisting in parishes; others were in charge of smaller parishes; some were doing consultative work for the church, for government or other institutions; some were serving on boards of directors and some were doing supply ministries in parishes and for the bishops.

Many of us were conducting retreats, taking workshops and leading missions. Almost all of us, including spouses, were involved in some form of volunteer work. Boredom did not seem to be an issue. Overall, it was my feeling that as a group we found retirement to be a gift, a time of opportunity and continued usefulness within the church and in society.

The group reached consensus that we should meet again and plans are being made for another October gathering using an expanded mailing list.

In personal study and planning for retirement, one piece of advice seemed very helpful: to develop new interests and to expand one’s life horizons. My pre-retirement activities had included motorcycling, bicycling, canoeing, fishing, travelling, walking and writing. These are all still part of my life. The new interests include kite flying, archery and membership in a fitness club gym. New interests highlight the fact that retirement brings the great asset of expanded time in which to enjoy activities of one’s choosing and to remain as healthy as possible.

For myself, the heart of retirement centres on two facets of life, both involving growth: firstly in one’s spiritual development and secondly, in one’s marriage, family and social relationships. Although these areas still don’t just happen — they have to be nourished in our lives — there is at last more time for prayer, meditation and the reading of scriptures and devotional material. I find it quite wonderful that each day provides time for being with God in prayer and meditation. Family and social contacts are an enjoyable larger part of our lives without being in competition with other work responsibilities. Retirement is simply and affirmatively a lively time of new possibilities.

I know that some people find retirement difficult. For that reason I believe that retirement and especially the years just before retirement provide us with an opportunity to sort out our identity and to bring some clarity to our various roles in life. All of us are called to live different roles such as family roles, spousal roles, work and career roles, spiritual, social and leisure roles. For large chunks of our life these roles are often competing with each other, which produces stress.

Retirement preparation and retirement itself brings us a new opportunity to reset our priorities and clarify our roles.

If too much of our identity has been tied up with our career and work roles, then the loss of this at retirement can be devastating or at the very least confusing to our sense of personal worth. Fortunately, as indicated earlier, for bishops our clerical role does continue. For me, this has meant assisting in a parish, conducting retreats, and doing consultation work.

Retirement, therefore, can bring us the time and opportunity to further pursue our ordination in a supportive role to diocese, deanery and parish settings.

We have the time to pursue a teaching, preaching, apostolic ministry within the church. We have time to balance chosen work with our other essential roles as spouses, parents, grandparents, friends. We have time to be centred in our Christian faith by way of prayer, study and to find a balance between an interior and exterior expression of faith.

The good news is that retirement provides more possibilities to be for the sheer joy of being who and what we choose to be. Personally I have found retirement to be a time of continued growth and challenge.

To retire as a bishop is to have time for new adventures in life and in God.

My desire for unity within the Christian family has always been a priority. I grew up in the Lutheran Church and am now an Anglican priest. Since I was a child, I have believed that it wasn’t important what your address was, but rather that you were “at home” with God. How little I knew about the complexities surrounding the truth of that statement.

The subject of interfaith marriages is too personal for me to write solely as a priest, theologian and pastor. My son, an active Anglican, has married a woman from the Sikh faith. Mark has a strong faith in God and has been nurtured with the stories of Jesus and all the glorious rituals of our church. Family loyalty and support has been a priority in our family life. In this context, there was tension, to say the least, as we prayed that my son would some day be acceptable to Sonia’s family; and there was sadness in seeing her living this relationship as a secret that her parents could not share.

But we are one of the fortunate families. Sonia’s family, at the last hour, accepted the wedding and have now fully accepted, and delight in, their relationship with their son-in-law. However, it is not without complications and misunderstandings, and family on both sides have a great deal of learning and growing to do in the years ahead.

The Anglican Church of Canada has, in the last decade, produced guidelines for interfaith marriages. In the preamble of the document, the church recognizes the multicultural and multifaith nature of Canadian society, which will likely increase the number of marriages across faith boundaries.

“Such marriages may bring rich cross-cultural experience to the couple and their families and also contribute positively to the texture of a new and emerging society. On the other hand, they sometimes cause strain between the individuals and their own faith communities, and this strain unchecked may sometimes affect the quality of the relationships themselves.”

FREE CONSENT. The clergy involved in interfaith marriages are asked to give careful consideration to the theology of Christian marriages. The document states:

“A Christian understanding of marriage is rooted in a Christian understanding of humanity. It is therefore better to speak of a ‘Christian understanding of marriage’ rather than of ‘Christian marriage.’ A Christian understanding of marriage includes at least the free consent of a man and a woman to a loving relationship which is lifelong and exclusive. It is therefore open to all, whether or not they are Christian, even though Christian tradition and thought have a larger and richer vision of marriage than this minimal standard.

“However, although marriage as understood by Christians is not open to all, not all necessarily share that understanding. Where an understanding of marriage is in sharp conflict with a Christian understanding of marriage, the marriage of interfaith partners in a Christian setting may not be appropriate.

“In Western Christian theology the ministers of marriage are the couple themselves and this applies to the partners in an interfaith marriage as well as the marriage of two Christians; the church is present at marriage ceremonies to bless and to support.

“(The partners) may bring diverse religious and theological understanding to their marriage. An interfaith marriage involving a Christian should not question or deny the Christian understanding of marriage as it is reflected in such biblical passages as Mark 10: 6–9, Ephesian 5: 25–30 and also in the exhortations in the marriage rites of The Book of Common Prayer and The Book of Alternative Services.”

Pastoral considerations of the clergy for the couple should cover such issues as their commitment to a lifelong union; the mutuality of the roles of men and women in today’s society; the cultural and religious assumptions of each person; their openness to the diversity of cultural and religious festivals and a willingness to participate in the rite of the other partner; their understanding of family life, particularly regarding the nurture, education and faith development of their children; and their willingness to respect what is good and life-giving in the cultural and faith traditions of their extended families.

The Anglican church allows that the marriage rite from The Book of Alternative Services may be adapted with the permission of the diocesan bishop. The rite is both Christian and Anglican but allows for some changes to be made with sensitivity to the faith tradition of the non-Christian partner and his/her family. The following observations require attention:

• the centrality of God is at the heart of the liturgy;
• language referring to God is always included;
• expression of our trinitarian and Christological beliefs are implied in the worship, but may not be specifically named in consideration of the non-Christian partner;
• music, prayers and suitable ritual gestures from the non-Christian tradition may be included;
• a religious leader of another tradition may be invited to participate in the service;
• a reading from the gospels and the Lord’s Prayer are to be used;
• the eucharist is not celebrated at an interfaith marriage;
• the vows and the blessing of the marriage are according to the Anglican rite of marriage.

PASTORAL CARE. It is important for the clergy, in dialogue with the couple, to determine where this marriage can most appropriately be celebrated; in the church, or in a civil ceremony, or in the partner’s faith community. According to the guidelines of the House of Bishops, an Anglican priest may not preside at a marriage ceremony in a domestic or outdoor setting.

The guidelines on interfaith marriage indicate that under certain conditions, Anglican clergy can participate in the marriage rite of another faith community. When clergy are asked to be involved in an interfaith marriage, as presider or faith representative, they bring to the couple a commitment to care pastorally for the couple and to assist them as fully as possible in the nurture of their marriage.

As a priest, I fully recognize the possibility of watering down the rich faith tradition that is my experience. I am not alone in this concern. Seeking the lowest common denominator in any interfaith exchange, be it worship, marriage or living as global neighbours, is to make less of what and who we are created to be. Our Christian doctrines of baptism, forgiveness and atonement – to mention just a few – make for interesting and sometimes frustrating dialogue with brothers and sisters of other faiths.

This should not surprise us. Doctrinal dialogue among Christians can be both interesting and frustrating. Doctrinal issues may never be fully resolved. As I reflect on issues that concerned “early church fathers” and as I now dialogue with “late church mothers,” I am immensely aware that there will always be an expanding edge in our attempts to define our faith.

Questions will continue as we recognize that not all Anglicans are in agreement about interfaith marriage. It is important to all Christians to have ongoing dialogue regarding our understanding or misunderstanding of the universalism of Christ.

I believe that interfaith marriages are not about evangelism but rather about sharing faith experiences and offering pastoral care as the couple seeks to express love with integrity and respect in their relationship with one another and with the Holy Other.

Our different faith traditions have a responsibility, at the very least, to enter into the dialogue regarding interfaith marriages. Church leaders have a significant role to play in modelling the dialogue. I suspect that the greatest potential for understanding, mutual respect and the common nurture of our different faiths exists within the families of the couple. This then necessitates a clear and informed understanding of our own faith. If we believe that we are all part of the family of God, then a healthy starting point exists within the families who experience this opportunity. We will need to share our stories and listen to the stories of others.

Questions will arise over the celebration of holy days and the nurture of faith for children born into an interfaith marriage. Some of us will weep silently as grandchildren are not baptized. Some of us may be blessed by a deeper sense of the gracious and all-powerful presence of the Holy One in our midst.

Today, many of us, clergy and laity, often struggle to define our “picture” of God. It is a detriment to all of humanity that we so often make the picture smaller, out of our fears and our needs for control, rather than enlarging the frame. Once again, as history has proven, our children will lead us into uncharted waters. I pray that we will have the grace and faith to follow, and the wisdom and love to guide them.