They say God laughs at our plans, though I doubt she laughs now.
So many plans of ours all rubble and ruin – holidays, weddings, jobs, home moves, exams, income, outings, shows, businesses, festivals, sport, good deaths, gatherings, birthday celebrations…toilet paper.
If God does laugh at our plans, it’s because they formalise the uncertain; lay claim to a future that cannot be claimed.
We make a plan and imagine it so, when it isn’t so – there is bleak comedy there.
But he doesn’t laugh at our sorrow and anguish when life snatches something precious away.
And much has been snatched of late; we may have the scars for a while. Some things will not easily be forgotten.
But may be when this is all over – who knows? – we’ll sit more lightly to plans, reminded by these dismantling days that we are not masters of the universe.
Perhaps then, we’ll speak more of possibilities than plans; and a ‘possibility’ is a ‘plan’ lightly held; a more vulnerable way.
The ego can fixate around a plan and wield enormous and destructive power; but it has no authority, no clout, around a possibility, which dances more freely through our lives..
The new secret of shopping, amid empty shelves, is to go with a possibility in mind rather than a plan; it turns almost certain disappointment into an adventure.
And it may be the new secret of life as well; possibilities rather than plans.
I remember in my past, some people, after making an arrangement, saying ‘God willing’.
It always sounded rather trite, to be honest. I felt superior.
I understand them better now.
