For most of us work dominates our waking hours. It defines who we are and to whom and what we belong. Work is much more than a job that provides a livelihood, although for the fortunate among us the labor that brings out our best and allows us to contribute most to others also supports us.

Work looms especially large in retirement as we face the loss of it. We leave behind decades of identifying ourselves by what we do and others’ recognition of us. Whatever we have professed to this point, the work of living shifts.

The work of living is the key, for our work in this sense does not change. Our most recent job may be ending, but the task of delineating ourselves by the way we create and share meaning does not. There is no stepping down from the occupation of living. In fact, having more time enables us to explore and create new ways to express that unique set of gifts that is our vocation.

In the example of creating poetry David Whyte inspires us to pay attention to the arriving breeze of revelation, the meaning that is our work to discover for each of the days remaining to us.

THE LIGHTEST TOUCH

Good poetry begins with the lightest touch, a breeze arriving from nowhere, a whispered healing arrival, a word in your ear, a settling into things, then like a hand in the dark it arrests your whole body, steeling you for revelation.

In the silence that follows a great line you can feel Lazarus deep inside even the laziest, most deathly afraid part of you, lift up his hands and walk toward the light.

For her bed time story one night this week our six-year-old grandchild chose The Giving Tree. As is often true the simplicity of a child’s tale taps the complexity of an elder’s painfully acquired perspectives.

First published fifty years ago Shel Sliverstein’s story has been interpreted in a variety of ways from a parable of unconditional love to the “me” generation’s exploitive narcissism. (The boy takes everything – fruit, branches and trunk).

When I asked what she liked about the story, our granddaughter had two answers: the tree kept giving and giving and the boy kept getting older and older until all he wanted was to rest on the stump that remained.

The story offers several questions for our reflection. To what extent do we give? To what extent do we take? How do we receive?

Have we identified what it is that we have to give in life? Do we give freely without expecting anything in return? Do we give “it” all away because that may be safer than risking the request for reciprocity?

Do we take without considering consequences, oblivious that the day will come when there is nothing left to take, or, as those of us who are seniors fear, there is little more to give?

Do we take without appreciation? The boy never thanks the tree, although she takes joy from his childhood play in her branches and his periodic visits through the years.

After every gift the tree provides, the narrator reports: “And the tree was happy.” Was it that she was fulfilling her destiny? Was it her unwavering commitment to relationship? How open are we to receiving such bountiful grace?