Best Laid Plans

Sometimes it feels like everything around me is about schedules.

At the coffee shop, it's about scheduling shifts over the week: Who needs this day off? Who can only work in the morning? Who can work but is probably going to be hungover?

At the church, it's about scheduling events over the course of a year: When will new members join? Which choir is singing on each Sunday? When is it NOT a three-day weekend, to schedule the children's groups?

If it's not about actual Sunday morning worship, it's all the special events that happen. Soon it becomes less about 'schedules' and more about 'conflicts.' Then you're really in trouble. Don't schedule one choir because the other choir is available. Don't put that special event at the start of deer season. Aren't most kids gone at camp... do you really want that activity scheduled? Or I like this best: let's schedule a meeting to talk about these schedules. (Yeah; I have so much free time to do that.)

I just went through most of last year's files and pulled a year-long music schedule, three or four different choir schedules, my own personal schedule, the proposed school-year schedule, events that conflicted during last year's schedules..... Oy. All to come up with more schedules.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's anything wrong with having an organized schedule. In fact, one of my favorite things to do is to sit down with my day-planner and look at an upcoming week. It sits open in front of me and I can fill in little appointments, draw arrows during my coffee shop shifts, write down little to-do notes on the appropriate days. There is a sense of excitement as I take in everything that I hope to accomplish in the coming days. (Also, my brain is so full of senseless information that there is no way I would keep anything straight without my not-so-little black book.)

But.

What about those time-slots with no appointments, no arrows, no shifts? This is where I have my problem. I have become so accustomed to filling my days with 'business' or indeed 'busy-ness' that I feel guilty about unscheduled time.

Unwashed laundry, dirty dishes, and an empty refrigerator is the practical result of my need to fill my days. I'm nit-wit enough to become caught up in the To-dos of each day that my internal pendulum swings too far and I don't do anything that's NOT in my to-dos. I mean really? Should I really have to write down 'wash your dishes'?

And in my faith-life... oh boy. I schedule church. I schedule bible-study. I schedule choir practice. I work at a church, so I even have scheduled meetings in scheduled rooms with scheduled prayer. It's not like it's forced on me, it's just right there. I know it's coming. I'm ready, I'm prepared, I've drawn my arrow and reserved that time.

Now, scheduling time for faith, meditation, fasting, study, etc., I don't think that's bad. In fact, most leaders in my life have pointed out the importance of setting aside time for those things. When we do that, we are making a choice to hold our faith and spiritual life to a high importance. But in my life, it is sometimes the opposite. I can get so caught up in doing my 'job', that all of my scheduled 'faith' time is about just that - a job.

Our yearly 'gathering of the schedules' and the related upcoming meetings will this year serve another purpose for me. As I look forward and begin to plan for the months ahead, I will embrace those 'unscheduled' blocks of time. When I see an hour without an arrow, I will not seek out a new appointment. Instead, I will think of what amazing and spontaneous things might happen when that hour is at hand. Perhaps I will feel like a walk at the nature center, maybe I'll go to this great hill I know and fly a kite, or I could open a book I haven't 'had time' to read.

Life is full of opportunities, I'm learning. It just takes a little planning ... or perhaps a little un-planning.