Our Senior Minister, Chuck Kutz-Marks, recently retired after 42 years of service. So what are you going to do in retirement, Chuck?
“Who knows” is the honest answer, but there are a lot of things on my Retirement Projects and Activities list. Some of them are:
Finish reading The Artist’s Way and commit to 3 pages of writing first thing each morning.
Read Taking Retirement: A Beginner’s Diary by Carl H. Klaus.
Do Progoff journaling: I’ve benefitted from this practice for 43 years now, with lack of time for doing the work thoroughly. No excuses now!
Find a Project I can do for the Bluebonnet Area: I want to use some of my time and experience to benefit the wider Church. I’m sure something will rise to consciousness for this.
Travel mostly West and North of here: NM, UT, WY, MT, CO. Probably mostly on my own as I’m doubtful Becca will tolerate camping long, but I hope I’m wrong about that. Becca and I will also travel to visit family and friends, all who whom live east of the Mississippi, and some of whom we haven’t connected with in over 30 years. On top of all of the traveling, this year Becca and I celebrate 40 years of wonderful marriage together!
Physical exercise regime: My doctor recommends yoga and I’m up for giving it a try.
Volunteer building, repairing, community activity.
Get politically engaged: Did you know I’m a Green Party member? You might have guessed.
Write: I want to start writing contributions to Wikipedia. there has been a book in my head for years now comparing practices in widely divergent religious traditions; practices that have similar characteristics but are named and contexted differently. I have the name for the book… but I’m keeping it secret for now.
Supply preaching: Preaching has been so central to my spiritual life that not having that weekly requirement to dig deeply into the Bible and into our culture is something that I expect I’ll be missing.
Kayaking, fishing, hiking, biking: Doing these with my 3 local grandsons should be a hoot.
Cooking: I have a nearly complete outdoor kitchen in the backyard and love cooking outside. It will be a great opportunity to try out some new recipes.
Ham Radio: Ham Radio gets my inner geek going. I got my Technician license 2 years ago and my General license 3 months later. My first retirement project will be building a DMR (Google it) hotspot kit that recently arrived from China. The hotspot runs with a $10 PC on-a- card the size of candy bar called the “Raspberry Pi Zero”. Learning enough code to run it could be a challenge. The Raspberry Pi was designed to hook children into the joys of electronics and coding, and it got me. I’m hoping the grandsons are hook-able and I get to be a tutor.
Astronomy: My first ministry dream was to teach high school physics and astronomy and be pastor of a small church on Sundays. It never materialized, but my love of astronomy still grows. You know, half of what I learned in college astronomy study is no longer true, however there is this cool subset of Ham Radio that tracks satellites, the space station, and bounces radio signals off the moon’s surface. Next May I hope to spend a week at the Texas Star Party near the McDonald Observatory in West Texas. At the Texas Star Party, a few hundred amateur astronomers camp out, bring their telescope gear and study the heavens while sharing their new equipment and techniques. Am I the only one who thinks this is just plain awesome?
Go through publications of Jeremy P. Tarcher, Shambala, 10speed Press. There’s a lot I want to dig into.
Organize my Kindle library for faster/easier access. Just discovered I have 164 Kindle books and getting to the one I want at any given time isn’t easy anymore.
These are just a few of the things that I’ll be investing time in. At times I think I’m a kid being let loose in a candy store. At other times I wonder how we’ll survive without the constant connection of the heartbeat of the congregation. No matter what’s going on, I’ll begin blogging it on Facebook and https://ckutzmarks.blogspot.com/. Check out the Deep Ecology and visit to the border items at blogspot.
Once June 23rd’s service and reception is over and we have Vonda Todd’s interment in San Antonio the next day, I’ll be here in Austin but steering clear of UCC while your new Interim Sr. Minister, and then later on your new Sr. Minister, settle in. It will be important for you to connect with them as you have so wonderfully with me over these good years. Love him/her, support him/her and may the wonderful life at University Christian Church grow richer and better with the years.
Love always,
Chuck