Cuba: Stewart's Retirement Faith

As I travel, I ask people about retirement. Almost every day I ask someone about something having to do with retiring in an open-ended way. Even though most of the people I talk to know I'm a minister, they almost never bring up God. Except Stewart.

I met Stewart in Donde Lis, a cafe in Havana. He was born and raised in Wales, but ended up in the Bahamas as a teacher. He was in his 70s and on his 5th wife I think he said. He showed me her picture. Anyway. When asked what he enjoyed in retirement, he said "My faith." He had faced many challenges in his life (besides, apparently, his marriages) and had found that with God's help he finally overcame them. This became most clear to him in retirement. He was in Havana for a tooth implant and an 'executive check up' in which he checked into a hospital and they gave him the medical once over for two days as an annual check up kind of thing. He was very impressed by the competence and value of the Cuban health care system. He described his experience with them as 'blessings.' Most people I talk to do not described dental implants as blessings, but this man was clearly on the lookout for them. He found them in retirement.

Steward described himself as well connected to God and his (Anglican) church. He believed in the Trinity and was full of aphorisms: "My God is neither mean nor stupid." "Don't put all your eggs in a foreign basket." "You never see God more clearly than when you are sick." "Jesus was the Son of God. Mohammed was too." He proudly called himself a Christian Communist and thought it was the only form of government Jesus would have approved of. He had a degree from the University of Miami, but was more at home in the Caribbean.

He saw God's hand in his life, especially in the blessings of his retirement. It wasn't entitlement, as I often find in the States. It wasn't an earned reward. It was a blessing. In the face of all the different places he had lived and the uncertainty he had faced, his current situation could not be seen as anything but a gift and blessing of God. Even for a God guy like myself, his attitude was refreshing. It wasn't particularly pietistic or filled with formulaic talk, it was just his humble bewilderment at the blessed situation he was in.

Minister types tell people all the time that it gets better or that it's going to turn out ok. This man had this experience and knew who to credit. Sweet.