Torch, Fall 1991

--~--~------~--~--------- THECOMMENCEMENTOFANEWLIFE by Harmon Bergen y wife and I had given our lives to a love of learning, so it was easy to think of retirement as a continuation of that attitude. We re– joiced in the assurance that our service to the Lord at Cedarville College had been a blessing to young people for 32 years. Yet we did not want our ministry to end as we . laid that employment aside. We commit- ted ourselves to the notion that retirement should be a graduation, a commencement of a new life. 1bis new era in our lives would include learning new things, undertaking new ministries, and reinforcing our commitment to each other and to the Lord. Back to School Retirement offered time and many opportunities, so I jumped into several things. The fast thing I did was to go back to school. (Anyone over age 62 can take courses free at Cedarville College.) I thought I might enter a new profession, perhaps using my knowledge of languages and investment experience to be a business manager for an overseas mission agency. So I signed up for two courses at Cedarville: accounting and business statistics. It was fun to be a student: carrying a briefcase full of books the size of the Sears catalog, crossing off my name on the chapel list, checking my post office box. Students wondered why I was in their classes. Professors were not sure how to address me. I told them to call me by my first name like all the other students, but they were not so sure they wanted to do that. I soon learned why my students had told me how much work they had. Both classes provided homework every night. Because I was rebuilding paits of our house at the same time, I soon found myself in the old pressure lifestyle. So I realized I had to set priorities as to what was most important, based on the limits of my time and energy.