WAR IS WHEN THE GOVERNMENT TELLS YOU WHO THE BAD GUY IS. REVOLUTION IS WHEN YOU DECIDE THAT FOR YOURSELF.

How do you find God? What do you look for? Where do you look? They say He's everywhere. Is He in Iraq watching hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians being killed? In the prison at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay, watching American soldiers abuse and torture prisoners of war? He must have been in New Orleans, so how in the hell did all that happen? He's suppose to be almighty, all knowing, all powerful? Where does He get off sitting around watching all this misery? It is neither logical nor figurable. I gave up trying to figure it out years ago. He either is or He isn't, even with all these shortcomings. You have to decide. No one can decide for you.

IMPEACH 'EM ALL. LET'S START OVER.

The boomers have started to retire. Already, the average age of retirement has dropped to 57. There are probably numerous reasons for this. Some have saved enough money. Others had retirement thrust upon them: they're fired; their jobs went overseas; they had health problems. I retired due to a combination of health issues and disgust for where the field I was in for 30 years was headed, along with the agency I worked for.

So by age 62, I'll be ready to start collecting social security. Otherwise, I would have to wait until age 65 and 9 months. Do the math. It would be stupid for me to wait. I've talked to a lot of boomers who intend on doing this very thing. Our problem, we have approximately 3 years without health insurance, first becoming eligible for Medicare at age 65. But guess what? We have more political clout than probably any other demographic group in history. Lurking just around the corner: universal health-care. Hello early retirement with health-care benefits.

Unlike previous generations, retirement is not about quitting anything but the job you have been doing for the last 20-30 years. Many of those jobs have disappeared anyway. In my particular case, it was getting to hard to stomach. So it's out with the old, and in with the new. A liberation. A personal revolution of sorts.

The question becomes-now what? You may have one day, one year, ten years, twenty or thirty years to plan for. It is almost like another lifetime. A post official job period. It occurs to me that the one thing you don't want to do is what you did for the last 20-30 years. Why not try something new? Get rid of the pressures, the deadlines, the bosses, the alarm clock, the commute. Kick some butt, the difference being, now you can do it on your own terms. And full-time.

I've been retired for a year now. I still don't have it quite figured out. I spend more time writing, which I enjoy. I developed a blog site, which is fun. I spend more time watching and managing our investments, which has been productive. We bought a retirement home, where I spend time pulling weeds and golfing. Since I helped people for a living, I don't feel overly compelled to join the elderly Peace Corp, or help old ladies cross the street. And since I boycott Wal-Mart, the greeter position is out. I have been thinking about a combination soup kitchen, bakery, restaurant, living quarters to train the jobless and provide shelter for the homeless. We would cater to the rich during the day, and the poor at night. It's a pretty tricky combination. A typical boomer enterprise.

So, I'm floundering a bit. Each day I seem to get a little closer to understanding it-it being retirement, and what to do with the rest of my life, however long or short that my be. I need whatever happens to be relevant, idealistic, and above all else, the opposite of conventional wisdom. After all, we boomers stopped a war, removed Presidents from office who had betrayed us, put blacks into places and jobs where they had never been, and championed the cause of women. The day after the Kent State killings, I lead a march at Southern Illinois University. We took over the Presidents office. I remember sitting at his desk and thinking: Now they know how we feel. We were angry. We were tired of the government not hearing what we were saying. And we were right. Today, we face the same circumstances. A distant President, an unjust war, blacks still seeking equality, particularly in legal and economic areas, and what will be a vicious and unprecedented attack against a woman running for the Presidency. One thing that retirement will definitely mean to me, and I'm sure the same holds true for many other boomers, is that this is not a time we are going to start backing down. We've come a long way baby, but we're still not there. Retirement is not the time to give it up. I'm getting an itch to sit at that desk again.

I don't mean to put myself into such esteemed company as Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, or Jerry Falwell, but I figure if God can talk to such characters, why not me? He speaks, I listen.
* "Holy crap! What are you guys doing down there?"
* "Heart attacks are my revenge for eating my animal friends."
* "With hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, terrorists, bird flu, and Mr. Bush and his cronies, are you really sure you want to take my name out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"
* "I made man before woman to give him time to think up an excuse."
* "Keep your words soft and sweet. You never know when you're going to have to eat them."
* "Peever, your sole purpose in life is to peeve people off."
* "Sure I get angry. I made you in my own image, didn't I?"
* "If you walk by a person on the street who is hungry, homeless, alone, needs assistance, guess what?"
* "The Garden of Eden, and Noah's Ark are mythological stories illustrating my power throughout the ages. They appear in every culture, since the beginning. Don't ruin it."
* Here's the thing: Of all the creatures in the universe, you seemed to have held the most promise. Now I must ask you to stop procreating. Everything else will fall into place."