Time for an Encore, Part IV - The Finale

Originally posted on paulastonewilliams.com on September 28, 2023

What might I offer that few others can? That is the question that led me to tailor my counseling practice toward executives, to focus my public speaking on gender equity, to find pleasure coaching speakers, and to lead in the post-evangelical church. I want my contributions to be value added to the lives of others.

I am a Christian. Even after all the awful ways in which I have been treated by the church, I still believe in the message of Jesus, particularly in the last public answers he ever gave, in which he spoke about loving God, neighbor, and self. At Envision Community Church, I define loving God as, “loving the God who burst on the scene 14 billion years ago in all of God’s complexity, mystery, and ever-expansiveness, rooted in relationship and grounded in love.” I define loving neighbor as, “loving every human being with whom you come in contact, particularly those who do not look like you.” Concerning loving yourself I say, “You cannot do the first two if you cannot do the third. It all starts with loving yourself.”

That final public bow in which he spoke those words is the core message of Jesus, and my starting point in matters of faith. I spent decades in the evangelical world. There is a lot I miss. I love megachurch worship services with great music, well-crafted substantive messages, and abundant awe. Excellence is assumed, and I believe that is important. I like how those churches draw people into community. I appreciate their local church polity, and boards that adopt Policy Governance.

Those are all reasons I prefer post-evangelical churches to churches affiliated with mainline Protestant denominations. There aren’t many independent post-evangelical churches, and none of us know what we’re doing really, particularly in a nation in which we have gone from 70 percent of citizens affiliated with a local religious body, to 47 percent having a local church, synagogue, or mosque. Add Covid to the mix and you have a lot of pastors scratching their heads. The churches on the far right keep the flock loyal by stoking fear with misinformation, but Millennials and GenZ are over that. Only the Baby Boomers get jazzed by the marriage of church and state.

Our species never took off until we moved from the level of blood kin to the level of tribe, and what brought us into community was not our need for safety, but man’s search for meaning. Our search for meaning has always gone better when approached in community. That is difficult to do in post-Covid America, with its strong individualism and fresh cuttings of isolationism.

People who are not in religious community get stuck in Fowler’s Stage Four of faith development, the stage of disenchantment and skepticism. I was at a dinner last month in which a woman said, “I went to church every Sunday until I got to college. I got up and went to mass the first Sunday I was at school. The second Sunday I did not, and I never have again.” She spoke triumphantly, as if she had arrived at an important insight. I’d suggest she arrived at a cul-de-sac of ennui. The expansive spirituality of Fowler’s Stage Five is out of reach for those who reject spiritual community, to say nothing of the elusive Stage Six.

I visited an old friend from my former denomination the other day. I realized just how much information I have about that denomination, its idiosyncrasies, history, leadership, theology, and all the other miscellany that comes from 40 years of work in a field. All is lost. No one in my new world is interested in that information. They consider it to be esoteric, and its lessons outdated. It is rare when anyone from that world reaches out to me. This friend suggested that someday I might be invited back to the denomination’s national conference. I told him I was very confident I would not live long enough to see that happen, and I have really good genes. My children will also not live long enough to hear my name spoken in a positive light from within that denomination. I have made peace with that reality.

Nevertheless, I am still taken by this man, Jesus, and the community that formed around his teachings. I want to bring my 40 years of religious knowledge and wisdom into this new post-evangelical world, and bring hope to turbulent times.

As for now, these are the areas on which I want to focus as I offer my unique gifts to those who might find the wisdom of those gifts helpful. I want to provide spiritual direction and therapy, to speak on issues related to gender equity, to coach speakers, to lead a spiritual community, and to always be open to new opportunities of service.

I also hold close those friends and family who take the path less traveled by, who are unafraid to look at life without a rose-colored filter, who are focused less on happiness and more on peace, less on satisfying their ego needs, and more on satisfying their souls.

I have fewer friends, but deeper friendships. Pretty much all of those friends are restless, as am I, uncomfortable that at this advanced age we are still called anew onto the Hero’s Journey, with its road of trials and dark cave. But we know you cannot stop the journey prematurely, even if you are tired, even if you are exhausted. You must answer the call not because you are indispensable, but because you are dispensable,  and you want to offer what you can for as long as you can.

One last thing about this encore. I believe it is important to find something to do that you have never done before. I ran for public office in my Front Range town nestled in the foothills of the Rockies. For the first six months in office I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know a resolution from an ordinance. A year and a half in, I’m figuring out the lay of the land, and yes, I plan to run again. Will I be elected? Who knows? There are those who think our entire board is incompetent. I think we’re actually pretty good. We certainly are all on the same page, which has made a lot of people happy, and allowed us to do much good work. Do I enjoy politics? I can’t say I do. But learning something completely new, and helping my town in the process is worth it, even if meetings stretch into all hours of the night.

I tell people nowadays that I am semi-retired. All that means is that I no longer do much of anything I do not want to do. I fill my days serving within my areas of expertise, doing work that satisfies my soul, and always looking beyond the horizon for the next thing.

It has been a challenge to prepare for an encore life. I am not sure I would have chosen to do so, but my rejection by the many forced me to begin anew. So often we do not seek the road less traveled by. It is thrust upon us. But ten years into this encore life, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

And so it goes.