An increasing number of my friends who are retiring are confessing to what the Germans describe as Schadefreude —- a compound word, meaning shame-joy. Shame at passing quietly into the ranks of retirement without admitting that the systems within which they have been working are broken and have been broken for quite some time — Joy at having managed to avoid the fate of those who will suffer for the brokenness.
Not all Schadefreude can be avoided. A tragic accident happens, claiming the lives of some and not others? The survivors will suffer Schadefreude. They are joyful at having survived; ashamed to be joyful at having survived something that claimed the lives of others.
But the kind of Schadefreude that some of my friends are suffering now as they retire is more complex. Could they have named the brokenness? Could they have cared for the younger victims of the brokenness? Could they — even now — disturb the comfort of retirement in order to announce that the system is broken?
There are no easy answers. There is no strategy that can be guaranteed to work. Not everyone who retires from a broken system is required to play the same role. Some are called to shout about the brokenness from the rooftops. Some are called upon to run an underground railroad caring for those who are bruised by the system behind closed doors.
What is clear is that retirement is not about passing off the scene and collecting — with a sigh of guilty relief — the last crumbs falling from a broken institution. There are still things to be done the day after one quits forever.