Summer vacation travel is at the forefront of many of our minds, offering an exciting escape from the daily work or ministry routine. But, if you are a clergyperson, retired, or a lay member living on a tight budget, how can you venture into the vacation season with financial confidence to ensure a worry-free and enjoyable summer vacation?
Keeping track of your healthcare costs can take effort, but the payoff can be worth it. Following these tips could mean more money in your pocket, and may even help you get healthier.
If you are a UCC clergyperson pondering the optimal timing for your retirement to begin receiving monthly annuity benefit payments, the decision is an important one that carries significant weight, and can impact your financial security.
By Rev. Bruce G. Epperly, Ph.D.
My friend and fellow theologian and member of the Medicare generation Patricia Adams Farmer talks about taking a “beauty break.” Amid the various activities of the day, we can pause and notice the wonder of life around us. We can as poet Mary Oliver says, “Pay attention” and “Be astonished” at the amazing world in which we live and the wonder of our own lives, “awesomely and wonderfully made.”
By Rev. Bruce G. Epperly, Ph.D.
Francis of Assisi’s first biographer Thomas of Celano described Francis as “always new, always fresh, always beginning again.” Now, for most of us with a history and several decades of habits and preferences, Celano’s description seems an impossibility. We often feel set in our ways and resist change. Yet, as President Jimmy Carter noted, the most creative times of our lives are when we go away to college and in our first years of retirement. Certainly, that was the case with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, who embarked on four decades of adventures of spirit, politics, and service following Carter’s presidency.