Retirement—what a lovely thought! Theoretically, I am retired. I stopped working for a full-time salary back in 2015 and started this blog. Since I retired, I have mostly sat around the house watching TV, gone for long walks, bothered my wife a lot, and started playing computer games.

Oh, and few other things also: I’m Editor-in-Chief of the online quarterly magazine God and Nature and grant writer and financial officer for a local charity (Rockville Help). I was also lay leader for my local United Methodist Church for six years, wrote and published two books on science and faith and a chapter in another one, built a social media platform of over 20 thousand followers on X (twitter) and on Facebook… Oh, and currently I am co-chair of the program committee for the upcoming ASA conference in Washington DC next month.

I mention all of this activity to illustrate how busy “retirement” can be—which brings me to why I have neglected this blog since March. For the last two months, I have been overwhelmed with finishing the first draft of my next (third) book, preparing the spring issue of God and Nature, and working on setting up the program for the ASA meeting. There have been a few times during this high-stress, high-intensity period when I have asked myself what I think it means to be retired, and whether it might not be a bad idea to rethink the whole concept. But now the Spring issue is out, the book is in the hands of its editors, and I have a brief respite.

A couple of years ago, I was given a Distinguished Career Award by the Washington Academy of Sciences. In my acceptance speech, I mentioned that I was retired, and then quoted my father (a chemist), who told me that “in science you never retire—you just stop getting paid.” How true that turned out to be.

So, while I cannot promise anything about the future, which is more in God’s hands than my own, I am hopeful that even when the deadlines for approving edits and rewrites come around, the next issue of the magazine is due, etc., I will somehow manage to have better control of the time chaos, and maybe even do a lot more things like watch entertaining programs, take longer walks, and write this blog. Pray for me.

And if you decide to retire, don’t tell anyone.