Last Times

As I learn of a judge on the Supreme Court, an NFL superstar, and a gold medal snowboarder who are all retiring, I feel a kinship with them. Like me, and all people who retire, I suspect they are experiencing the strangeness of last times.  After doing something we’ve done a bazillion times before, it becomes a part of we you are, so knowing we will be doing it for the last time creates a bit of an identity crisis. And if it happens to be something that we’ve loved doing, knowing it’s the last time comes with some grief. 

When I was ordained at 26, I couldn’t imagine that I would still be a pastor 43 years later. And now that the date of my retirement is nearing, I’m thinking about all the lasts. I’m down to my last 20 sermons, after preaching thousands of times through the years. Will I preach my last sermon at the end of June, or sometime after I retire? I don’t know. But I do know that there will be a last sermon for me.

A few years ago, I looked ahead to the months before my retirement and imagined myself savoring all the lasts. My last Christmas, my last time presiding at Holy Communion, my last time teaching a class, my last Council meeting… I planned to take it all in and do my best to slow down time so none of those lasts would slip by me too quickly. But that’s not the way it’s been going.

This year I had what should have been my last Christmas with my people, but instead of savoring it, I just wanted to get through it and move on. I feel like I had my last Christmas with them in 2019. That was a real Christmas celebration with full organ, brass quintet, timpani, handbells, and choir leading us we sang our hearts out. We lit candles for “Silent Night”, and I fought back the tears as I looked into the glowing faces of the people standing on the other side of the altar. After worship, we greeted one another with hearty Merry Christmases and hugs. By the time all the worship services had ended that night, I was exhausted, but in the best possible way, with a heart so full that when I finally went to bed after midnight, it took me hours to fall asleep. If I had known that was my last full Christmas with Ascension, I would have relished it more. For Christmas 2021, I had no sentimental feelings. If I had any feeling at all, it was anger. I was angry at the pandemic for robbing me of this one last Christmas with the people I have grown to love.

I am down to my last five months as a parish pastor. And this is not the way I expected things to go. I am not treasuring my lasts the way I had hoped. So many of them already happened two years ago, back when I didn’t know they were my lasts. Now as I look forward to what is officially my last Easter with Ascension, I can’t help thinking that, like Christmas, my last Easter with them was back in 2019. Yes, I know it will still be Easter, Christ will still be risen indeed, and I’ll be spending it with my people. But it won’t be what I had envisioned for my last Easter.

I can’t stop wondering when I might be doing something for the last time these days. Some things I can’t bear to think that I’m doing for the last time. Like baptizing a baby. I hope that hasn’t already happened for the last time. And other things, it would relieve me to know if I’m doing them for the last time. I have a funeral this month and I pray, please let this be my last funeral. There have been too many in my time at Ascension. I look at the dear saints of our faith community, and I don’t want to commit a single one of them to their final resting place. Please, Lord, let the next pastor do that, after I’m gone.

I know that I have no control over my lasts. Even when I think I do, it often doesn’t go the way I expected. And the truth is, I never know, when I am experiencing the things that bring me joy, if it might be for the last time—the last time to taste Crème Brûlée, the last time to listen to Copeland’s Appalachian Spring, the last time to do the chicken dance at a wedding reception. Each time could be the last time.

I wonder what my life would be like if I treated everything I did as if it were for the last time. Would it give me a heightened awareness that helps me live my life to the fullest? I know myself well enough to know that it wouldn’t work that way for me. If I knew it was the last time I was going to do any of the things I love in life, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy them.

For most of my lasts that I’ve already experienced, it’s just as well that I didn’t know they were going to be my last. Although I had no idea that it would never happen again, I’ve already sat in the top branches of a tree for the last time. I’ve already roller skated for the last time. I’ve played my flute with a full orchestra for the last time. I’ve already climbed Mount Pisgah for the last time. And then there’s sex. Many years ago, I had sex for the last time. (Before you try to tell me that I still don’t know it was the last time I would have sex, trust me. I know. It was the last time I will ever have sex.) Of course, the last time I had sex I didn’t know it would be the last time I had sex. And I’m quite certain that, had I known, it would have felt so monumental that it would have ruined the whole thing for me. 

I’ve been dwelling on last times too much these days. I want to live through the next five months oblivious to the last time I will do things and instead look forward to all the first times I have yet to experience. For the first time ever, I will be with my grandsons for their first day of school. I will go to Justin’s soccer game for the first time, and I’ll watch Nick run track. I will be with them on Christmas morning for the first time. One day soon, I will visit with them and go home, knowing that I will see them again the next day. And this will be the first of many such days I’ll be blessed to enjoy. I still have so many first times ahead of me.

Last times and first times. Over the next year, I expect my days to be filled with an abundance of both. And I trust that the last times, the first times, and the many times in between are all in God’s hands. As am I.