Planning through Uncertainty

I am ridiculously well-equipped to handle this crisis.  I have a large support network that is accustomed to being contacted via phone.  I have a day job I have held for years that is tangentially connected to healthcare (and thus recession resistant).  I could afford to stock up on (a reasonable number of) groceries.  My apartment boast a downright unfair number of windows for a New York City domicile and thus is quite pleasant to spend the daytime in.  Most of my weekly routines transitioned almost seamlessly to phone or video.  I am relatively young and (despite my best efforts) healthy.  So I have a lot to be grateful for; I will be fine.

Even so, I am in mourning for a lost sense of security.  I scroll through Facebook and read about the fear and uncertainty of those who have it much, much worse.  I take naps too late and don't sleep well overnight. I call my parents and whine.  I want to know what is coming tomorrow.  I want to make plan I know I can stick to.  I want to know my summer vacation will still happen.  I want to know my grandparents will remain healthy.  And I don't.

The Kingdom of Today

"I don't see much point in talking about my plans, since we don't know what is going to happen with all this," I told my spiritual director at our usual monthly meeting (held, in an abundance of caution, over the phone this time).

He very wisely and profoundly replied "We never do."

What a delightful burden that would be to put down: the insistence upon tomorrow.

Times have been good for so long that I forget that I can't see the future.  I forget that my happiness is not rooted in the promise of tomorrow.  All God gives me is the Now.  And this is not insecurity, but relief.

Earthly kings always try to expand their kingdoms without considering their own capabilities.  I send my armies into tomorrow, to conquer and subdue it, without considering whether I can hold I can hold the ground.

But the extra hats just look so cool cool

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow is too large a kingdom for one such as me to rule.  Today has enough judgments and joys to keep me quite occupied.  I am not a king; I am a steward of the now that God has allotted me.  After all, it is much easier to be a steward than a King, because you have someone above you to ask for advice.

Sails and Rudders

Even knowing this, I find that my little portion and the hope of Heaven is not quite enough to sustain me during good times, nevermind bad.  I still want to make plans.  Is this impulse a lack of humility and faith?  Not inherently, I think.  Because God has a plan for me.  God does know tomorrow.  And when I make a plan that I think fits with God's plan, I offer my services to God towards fulfilling His plan.

by Thomas Merton

It won't work out.  Maybe it doesn't work perfectly because we live in a fallen world.  Maybe it doesn't work because I got God's plan wrong to begin with.  But at some point, some aspect of the plan will fall apart.  What then?  First, I remember that the results were never my responsibility.  Just as today is my only domain, the effort is my only responsibility.  The results are up to God.

And then, secondly, I adjust the plan, like one adjust a ship's rudder when the winds blow it off course.

Oh, very well.  You caught me!  Those of you who know me know that my first response is to grumble and procrastinate, not to make a new plan.   My plans often don't work out because I didn't work them, not because of any failure of circumstance.  And yet, eventually, I plan again.  What would be the point of doing otherwise?

Before this crisis, my plans still failed.  I still failed.  The strength of the headwinds has increased, but the solution has not.  I still have to turn the damn rudder back towards my destination.  I still have to make a plan.  Because I have Hope that making a plan, even one radicially and constantly altered by internal and external circumstances, is worthwhile.  Because I have Faith that if I do this, I will reach the divinely set destination, though not via the route I first expected.  And because I have enough Love for those around me to keep sailing.

Crossing the Bar by Henry Moore

So, I will still mourn for my illusory security, but console myself that it is no more illusory now than it was before this crisis. I will still make plans, but prayerfully, remembering what I can and cannot control.  I sail unknown seas, but that has never not been the case.  And what a wonderful consolation that is.