Article 1 - "RELEASING THE PAYLOAD" by Jessica Kuzmier December 2007 edition of First Church of The Streets

     The need to plan is a cultural imperative in most of Western society. There is a cause and effect. Anything that is considered needs to be weighed against its usefulness, as to whether anything will come of it. Even relaxation can be dragged into this theater, rendered as purposeful only because it has the end game of getting one ready for something in the future, such as a midterm or the annual report. If one plans enough then all alternatives can be guessed at or prepared for.

     It's easy to believe that all the facts are needed before one makes a decision. The more that modern science and technology is able to decipher codes, like the human genome and projecting global warming, the more it seems that humanity literally has everything all mapped out. Looking to see where the stock market will be in five years and reading the Farmer's Almanac to see what the winter will bring gives a sense of security that one can count on a mapped out future in order to plan one's life, from now until the end of earth.

     Some of this, of course, makes sense. Some sort of plan seems to be necessary to start a business or plan the building of a house. Sketches, outlines, and business plans are the necessary skeletons of creation; one has to start somewhere when trying to get himself going with some kind of scheme. Randomly making decisions is like throwing darts in the dark and knowing that by chance alone the target can be found. A plan gives a person a guide by which to begin action.

     The problem is that one can put so much faith in the plan that one may be afraid to jump out of it if an instinct, or perhaps, one's soul tugs at a person, saying that other action is necessary. It's easy to look at the plan, thinking that one's logic is all that is needed in a modern world of technology. It seems like folly or nonsense to not think out every alternative and act accordingly. Not doing so would make it seem like those people who used to look at the clouds and winds and think that they knew the weather, when now we have math.

     But of course, to many at a certain time and even to many now in certain places, looking at what the direction the wind was going was just as scientific as our models today. As people are the same, today, and yesterday, there were plenty of people back in the Preacher's time who relied on their plans and theories: "He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who regards the clouds will not reap" (Eccl. 11:4, NKJV). This seems to mean two things: 1) someone who spends all of his time planning never acts on his plan, or 2) someone is so wedded to plans and portents that she is not willing to act outside of proscribed behavior, perhaps to the point where the person almost regards her pet theory with a kind of idolatry, in a sense, a kind of power higher than herself.

     The first example seems to be explanatory in itself. Who has not met a person who is inundated with pie charts and databases, looking for the ideal plan for his big project? Except when it is time to implement all these great plans, the person all of the sudden decides that another meeting needs to be held to discuss the details. Or maybe even a meeting to plan a meeting to figure out what details need to be discussed at an even later meeting. In other words, this person is busy acting by planning, but because there is so much planning, in a sense, there is no planning. All of the planning is the action, because none of these plans ever get implemented. Thus, regarding the clouds and the wind becomes the total action that a person engages in. And maybe, he really gets off on it, in the sense that he appears busy and engaged and feels content that this is all the action that is needed.

     But what if someone is so engaged in her plans that she thinks that she regards them as necessary for her life? It is like someone who feels that she needs to put all the time into her career instead of taking time for herself, or someone who feels that she needs to be miserly because there isn't enough to go around and she has barely enough for herself. It is like a dogged fear that pervades her thinking to the point peace can't be at home in her heart. Plans, e-mails, and pie charts become the dictate of not only her working day, but her thinking. A clean, efficient house becomes more important than sitting down and talking to her crying child. Even worse, her plans may be so important to her that she may not even notice the child crying.

     This is in contrast with the admonition of the Preacher: "In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not hold your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, either this or that, or whether both alike will be good" (Eccl. 11:6, NKJV). Plans that steal the heart of their creator wither, because the soul is too dry to nurture all of these plans that seem so important to begin with. The God-believing person who puts all of her trust in plans, incessantly relying on her own logic with a ravenous obsession, is in a sense kicking God out of the plan and relying on her own logic. Rationalizing that God gave her a good brain to use and she will figure it out with the facts at hand pushes him away even further, because her brain may feed her ego by thinking she needs the clean house or the smiling child. However, her heart knows that despite her plans, she needs to let go of what she thinks is right. Instead, she needs to look at what her soul is trying to tell her in the here and now.

     This is ultimately the final downfall with relying on plans when they have dried up in the face of reality. One misses the moment and what the flow of life is trying to tell him. Maybe the five year plan is irrelevant three years down the road due to unforseen circumstances, and to cling to it in an ego-driven desire to show that one isn't going down without a fight is just complete and utter nonsense. Instead of mightily holding onto the past in order to prove to himself or others that he isn't a quitter, it may be wiser to realize that things change. When tenacity becomes stubbornness, the spirit of love and the here and now is thrown out the door. Whatever one reaps in this condition is more sparse than if he were willing to let go of his ego driven impulse to control all things, because in this spirit of ego the harvest is driven from a shallow soil of rocks.