March, 2025
by Rev. Bill Gupton
It’s starting to feel “real” now, my friends! With just three months left in my career as a Unitarian Universalist minister, I’m beginning to engage in all the “things” that go with wrapping up a 23-year ministry at a church that has meant so very much to me and my family. Events and celebrations are being planned and scheduled. People are arranging meetings and meals for an opportunity to share thoughts and feelings, memories and blessings with me. I’ve already officiated at my last Christmas Eve service, my last Water Blessing service, and more; my last Easter Sunday and Flower Communion are fast approaching. I’ve turned over the pulpit on Stewardship Sunday to those whose work will be part of next year’s operating budget – because I won’t be here.
Meetings with the committees and teams that do the work of the church have taken on a different air, as planning (which often takes the form of “looking six months ahead”) also involves events and programs that I won’t be part of. I’ve begun looking around my office, and at least mentally sorting my personal books and papers from those that belong to the church. This particular task – the clearing out and closing down of the “Minister’s Office,” and preparing to remove all that made it uniquely “mine” – is proving to be particularly emotional, for me. I actually plan to preach about this, on my next-to-last Sunday with you, on May 18, 2025.
I’m also finding it hard to lay down the now ingrained habit of planning what to preach about – again, several months in advance. I catch myself thinking about something that would “make a good reflection,” only to realize that all my remaining Sundays are already scheduled, already planned, already spoken for. Perhaps that’s part and parcel of why things are suddenly starting to feel “real” – I have begun walking the path to retirement, and I can see the end of that path clearly now. It is right there, on the horizon, and growing closer with each passing day.
I promise I will share as openly and honestly as I can, with you – as I always have – what I’m thinking and feeling and experiencing, on these last steps of the journey. I hope you will do the same, with me. Together, let’s “walk to the corner,” as one of my own former UU ministers once described the retirement process. When he said those words to my church, way back in the 1980s, it never occurred to me that I would one day be a UU minister myself – much less that I would be walking to the corner, with my own congregation.
But, here we are. Let us make the most of this special time together!
Imagine,
Rev. Bill