Reflection - Planning

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/102218.cfm
Ephesians 2:1-10
Luke 12:13-21

We moved to a new home about a year ago. When you live anywhere in the mountains, some serious landscaping, particularly terracing or erosion control, is pretty much a given — at least as an opportunity. So, during this past summer I’ve been working on retaining walls — not finished yet, but well underway. Retaining walls are different from certain other types of walls such as those observed by Carl Sandberg — you know, the kind that would define a property line. Mountain walls are best when they work with the contour of the land and flow with the dips and rises of the terrain. Consequently they need both planning, and an ongoing adjustment in the planning, unless, of course you hire a landscape engineer or a landscape architect to do the work for you. Me, I’d rather do it myself. So, I was reading through the Scripture text presented and was abruptly set back by the rich man who planned to tear down his barns to build bigger ones only to have the Lord admonish him:

‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;
and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’

Oh! Oh! This man is being chastised for planning ahead. My work on the walls, and the plans for their completion, immediately came to mind. Fortunately, my initial supposition about Jesus’ teaching was misguided. The text addressed an issue altogether different from planning; and "my" walls, which were now part of the mountain landform, had become more a possession of the land than of the homeowner (me) on whose land the walls were built.

All of this led to a reflection on reflections. I’ve know for quite a while that my reflections frequently flow into realms that were not part of the original plan (at least not the one I had in mind). That is to say, the ideas which the Scripture text provoked in me were not necessarily the ones which would find form or substance in the words I would eventually put on paper. In the past I would frequently write and discard. Write and discard. That practice has long been set aside. Then too, there was the problem of where to begin: through which word or verse was the Spirit particularly speaking to me? At times it was somewhat like the child’s game: hidden in this picture are an elephant, a top and a yo-yo. And finally, there were the sometimes strange pathways on which I would find myself walking. I would be writing along, stop and go back to review what had been recorded and ultimately wonder how I arrived on the particular spit of land where I was currently standing.

This present reflection seems to have a life of its own, one distinctively different from its previously birthed brothers. The teaching was there in the Scripture passage, though it was best understood after reading the whole passage through. It just wasn’t the one which so abruptly leaped into my awareness. The idea was there in my mind even if it was an inappropriate one. Where to begin wasn’t a problem; I had already pounced on a beginning. Neither had my thought trajectory appeared to be one which I should abort. Nor has that trajectory wavered from its initial course. So I go back to planning because I still don’t know where this is going.

As I mentioned back at the beginning: Mountain walls are best when they work with the contour of the land and when they flow with the dips and rises of the terrain. Consequently they need both planning, and an ongoing adjustment in the planning. What I mean by that is that straight-line configurations seldom work unless you are prepared to extract a boulder, remove a tree and its stump, cut the hills down to a satisfactory size and fill in the gullies. The land follows its own choosing as it were. It was sculpted and modified over a million, even a thousand million years. In my neck of the woods it is really rock — ground rock, chunky rock, boulder sized rock. In that respect it calls to mind the words of the Psalmist: “The LORD is my rock.” Immutable, unmoving, yet secure as a place of refuge. And this rock is a symbol of my Lord who is “my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”(Psalm 18:2)

Do I endeavor to twist and turn and bend the Lord? Do I seek to shape him so my path to salvation is to my liking? No! When building either walls or paths with the Lord it is best to follow the route laid out even if it is sometimes tortuous. It works best when it follows the contour of the land, the dips and rises of the terrain. It works best with a modicum of planning and a wealth of regular adjustment to the directions of the Spirit.