Officially Retired and Looking Forward to a Third Act

Freshly Retired, I Lean into a Breathtaking Future

Today is my first official day of retirement. It is also the first day of exploring my Third Act.

 

After leading Near East Area Renewal (NEAR) for nearly 12 years of unprecedented affordable homeownership development and urban neighborhood renewal—and after 25+ years of guiding and growing local nonprofits—I’m downshifting for a moment.

 

Only for a moment! Even as I take a breather, I’m already looking forward to what’s next. I’m exploring possible paths into and through what environmentalist Bill McKibben describes as the Third Act. Having learned and led and built and accomplished well into my sixties, how might I invest my time and energy and capacities and resources in legacy years?

 

It's a serious question. I don’t have the answer. I’m living the question. I have notions and inklings. I have ideas and dreams. I have cultivated capacities and a readiness to translate learnings and experiences into fresh community impact. What does that look like? I don’t yet know.

But on this first day beyond traditionally-defined work, on this first day of a Third Act, I celebrate the gift of time and the opportunities I have been given and lean into a breathtaking—if unknown—future.

Revisiting Wendell Berry's Poem 'Look Out'

On the eve of an ominous (to me) Inauguration, the Kentucky farmer's call beckons anew

As we face the specter of another Trump regime of rollbacks on essential environmental protections for the sake of exploiting fossil fuels for sheer greed, 'Look Out' seems apropos. Wendell Berry challenges us to see and enact a different way forward.

'Look Out' is from Berry's collection of poems titled Given (Shoemaker, Hoard, Washington, D.C., 2005). This is what Wendell Berry sees outside his Port Royal, Kentucky farmhouse:


Come to the window, look out, and see
the valley turning green in remembrance
of all springs past and to come, the woods
perfecting with immortal patience
the leaves that are the work of all of time,
the sycamore whose white limbs shed
the history of a man's life with their old bark,
the river quivering under the morning's breath
like the touched skin of a horse, and you will see
also the shadow cast upon it by fire, the war
that lights its way by burning the earth.

Come to your windows, people of the world,
look out at whatever you see wherever you are,
and you will see dancing upon it that shadow.
You will see that your place, wherever it is,
your house, your garden, your shop, your forest, your farm,
bears the shadow of its destruction by war
which is the economy of greed which is plunder
which is the economy of wrath which is fire.

The Lords of War sell the earth to buy fire,
they sell the water and air of life to buy fire.
They are little men grown great by willingness
to drive whatever exists into its perfect absence.
Their intention to destroy any place is solidly founded
upon their willingness to destroy every place.
Every household of the world is at their mercy,
the households of the farmer and the otter and the owl
are at their mercy. They have no mercy.
Having hate, they can have no mercy.
Their greed is the hatred of mercy.
Their pockets jingle with the small change of the poor.
Their power is the willingness to destroy
everything for knowledge which is money
which is power which is victory
which is ashes sown by the wind.

Leave your windows and go out, people of the world,
go into the streets, go into the fields, go into the woods
and along the streams. Go together, go alone.
Say no to the Lords of War which is Money
which is Fire. Say no by saying yes
to the air, to the earth, to the trees,
yes to the grasses, to the rivers, to the birds
and the animals and every living thing, yes
to the small houses, yes to the children. Yes.


What do I see? When I look out my window, do I see far enough--deeply enough, broadly enough--to perceive what Berry sees? And if or when I perceive such, am I caring or daring enough to leave my window and go out and say "no" to the Lords of War--to Money and Fire--and "yes" to life? Or do I just stand and stare, or turn away and hope someone else will take care of it?

John Franklin Hay
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA

The Unassuming Pianist

Mom offered her skilled art as a lifelong volunteer

I set up a home tribute (ofrenda) to my mom on top of this old baby grand I rescued from a neighbor a few years ago.

Janet Sheffield Hay, who passed on December 15th, was an unpaid/volunteer church pianist. For over 50 years she played for congregational singing (3 church services a week), choirs and seasonal cantatas, ensemble accompaniment, offertories, and singalongs. She was ever faithful and always ready. 

The upright piano in the homes of my childhood was well used. She practiced on it routinely, though not obsessively. At mom’s insistence, my sister and I took piano lessons and practiced on it (I was permitted to drop piano lessons and take up trumpet lessons in 5th grade). Singing gathered ‘round the piano with family and friends was a common happening (with three of my children in the photo).

Mom typically sight read music flawlessly and accommodated some pretty perfectionistic and demanding musicians (pathetic divas) without protest.

I think the fact that she played well and so frequently without identifying herself as a pianist is remarkable. If you didn’t know she was an active pianist, you’d not find out from her.

A few weeks before she died, someone donated a beautiful grand piano to the assisted living facility where she lived. I helped her walk to it and she played it for a short while (photo). I looked forward to more times with her playing that piano, but that one time was it.

I’m grateful for the gift of the love of music and the insistence on practice and learning to play musical instruments that she instilled in me. 

I just want the world to know what she would never tell: Janet Sheffield Hay was an artist at the piano and a faithful church pianist throughout her life.

Janet Sheffield Hay, 1936-2024

 Here is the Obituary I wrote at mom’s December 15th passing

Janet Sheffield Hay, 88, of Indianapolis, died peacefully in her home on December 15, 2024. Born in Albany, Kentucky, on October 19, 1936, Janet moved with her family to New Castle, Indiana, as a child. She graduated from New Castle High School in 1954. 

 Janet was a faithful spouse and devoted mother. She was married to John F. Hay for 62 years before his death in 2015. She was mother to Debbie (Hay) Stine and John Franklin Hay, Jr., both of Indianapolis, who survive her. Also surviving: six grandchildren, 11 great grandchildren, and one great-great grandchild.

 Janet was a pastor’s wife and she served dutifully in that role, offering her gifts as a church pianist and gracious parsonage host across six decades of volunteer service in the Church of the Nazarene. She was honored with the Distinguished Service Award by the Church of the Nazarene.

 Janet’s grandchildren are: Jamie (Britton) Blanck, Josh Britton, Abigail (Hay) Butler, Jared Hay, Molly (Hay) Crow, and Samuel Hay. Her great grandchildren are: Jacob Britton, Hannah (Britton) Slavens, Kobe Britton, Wyatt Britton, Lily Butler, Gabriel Butler, Claire Buter, Owen Crow, Oliver Crow, Blake Hay, and Jack Hay. Her great-great grandchild is Jayce Britton.

 Janet is preceded in death by her parents Willie Robert and Laura Mae Sheffield, brothers James Paul Sheffield, Emery Carr Sheffield, Gene Dale Sheffield, and sisters Willie Mae Sheffield and Myra (Sheffield) Hacker.

The Work of Christmas

 Howard Thurman suggests next steps for holiday revelers

"When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart."

from The Mood of Christmas by Howard Thurman

Sleepwalking Advent

 Shifting gears into Advent may take some time, but don't lallygag too long

I penned this poem about 20 years ago when I served as leader of a local community of faith. Most Christian communities observe the four weeks before Christmas as Advent--days of anticipation and preparation, as if intentionally making room in hearts and lives for what may come. Many of us take the Advent season casually, if we observe at all. This poem is for the likes of us.

Advent begins
in a fog of unreadiness,
as if by dull surprise
or in a twilight zone,
we groggily hang the greens.

Hardly with awareness
much less anticipation
good people sleepwalk
through the prophecies
and Annunciation.

We may finally stir
by the time children sing
“Away in a Manger”
the Sunday before Christmas,
their raised voices spark
a light in our slumbering souls.

Is it only children and prophets
who grasp the urgency,
sense the passion;
whose hearts are rended
and readied by the
promise of Light shining
in the darkness?

Is it only to them that Advent
becomes no mere repetition
of myth-laden past events,
but days of embracing
the living Mystery,
the ground of all hope?

By God’s mercy and grace
children and prophets are
only the first to hear,
the first to recognize,
to proclaim that it is,
indeed, Mystery.

The Light ever dawns,
beaming its rays into the
eyes of the groggiest saints,
the hardest sleeper
among us.

Only those who refuse to rise
amid many urgent shakings
and light flooding their beds
sleep through the
Incarnation.

“Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

An Adequate Gift

Four enduring stories may help our gift-giving anxiety this season

GIFT ANXIETY  What shall I give?  Will it be enough?  Will it be right?  Will it be what my dear ones desire?  Will they be pleased?  Such thoughts rattle through my mind as I think about gift-giving. I scroll through online items and walk the aisles of stores with questions circling.  You do this, too?  We are not alone.  

Some of my favorite imaginative Christmas stories and songs revolve around gift anxiety--and its resolution.  Leaving alone the more perplexing story woven in the Twelve Days of Christmas song, you may know the following stories quite well.  I recall them here and set them in context of this question: what is an adequate gift?

LITTLE DRUMMER  The most popular of the stories I have in mind is embedded in the song, "The Little Drummer Boy."  It sings first-person of a little boy who has nothing he thinks is fit to bring to the baby who is born to be the King.  "I have no gift to bring," he sighs.  He decides—innocently, naively, hopefully—to offer the only thing he has or can do: he will play his drum the very best he can for Jesus.  In the song, the baby Jesus smiles at him as he plays.  The gift is adequate.

LITTLEST ANGEL  "The Littlest Angel" is a beloved childhood story about a troublesome little angel who, learning that God's Son is to be born on earth, manages to gather together such common things as a butterfly, a bird’s egg, stones, his favorite dog’s collar in a rough-hewn box--things that he loved as a little boy on earth—to offer the Christ child. However, when the glorious light shines on all the other angels’ gift items, the littlest angel’s earthy gift pales grossly in comparison to their magnificent, shining gifts. He feels humiliated and runs to hide. But, to his surprise, his simple choices are things the little boy Jesus relates to and loves. As the Christ child looks approvingly upon his gift, it rises and transforms to become the star above the stable, giving light to all.

GIFT OF THE OF MAGI  "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry is the touching story of a young couple with very limited resources trying to offer each other a significant gift at Christmas. Unbeknown to each other, they sacrifice the best they have for the other's best. She sells her beautiful long hair so she can purchase a golden chain for her lover's valuable watch. He pawns his cherished timepiece to buy a golden comb for her beautiful hair.

IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER  Christina Rossetti’s carol "In the Bleak Midwinter" concludes with a verse that compellingly underscores the only adequate gift we really bring is the gift of our heart: 

“What can I give Him, Poor as I am? 

If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb. 

If I were a wise man, I would do my part. 

Yet what I can I give Him--Give my heart.”

GIFTS WE RECEIVE  Christmas is really not about what we may give to Jesus or to others. It is about what Grace has given to us. All our gift giving is a simply response to and reflection of this gift. Whatever it is you choose to give to others, let it be joyfully and from a grace-gifted heart.