Making Plans

for Anne and Those She Loves What is the use of making plans? A contemporary Ecclesiastes will shake his head and rail against the vanity of pitting desires against time. Here's how I see it: today, you finish dreaming of a future shaped by your plans, each mioment settled in its proper place and a mantle of satisfaction spread over everyone you involve. Then tomorrow arrives with no stake in your happiness, no awareness of your perfect plans, and dire events tumble forth - an illnesss, a postponed reunion, a death in the family, forgotten promises. There will be no end to the spoilage of hope, and time will mock your plans with sour laughter. So I repeat: What is the use of making plans? This bowl of lies was my mind last week. Then I read the message you sent me, and you had silenced Ecclesiastes and lifted my mood. Oh, the calm certainty of your imagined future! With LOVE the center around your plans orbit... It is the man in your heart of hearts, whose embrace measures the boundless contours of the world you two share, the soil in which your plans flower to maturity. It is the children you teach, who love you like a big sister, your second family outside of home. It is your friends, who face the same future as you with their plans gilded with hope. It is your country, under the ever renewed mandate of heaven, on the cusp of new greatness. You see how your faith has inspired mine, I am infected with your hope and rejoice in this ideal sickness. I see clearly now the use of making plans, because nothing which is not planned can be loved, and nothing that is not loved can become real.