Plans

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On my computer at home I have a little card that says, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.” I keep it close to where I work, because I always need the reminder that life doesn’t follow my plans.

These words could also be the motto for life in Egypt where nothing ever seems to go according to plans. Take Monday night for instance.

The announcement was made at lunch on Monday that we would go to the Holy Family Parish that evening for Mass in English. Usually during the summer course, we go to the English Mass on Saturday evenings at Holy Family, a Roman Catholic Parish that offers Mass in English, French, and various other languages to the international residents of Maadi. This week, however, we skipped the Saturday evening Mass so we could go on our falucca ride on the Nile (a glorious evening that I’ll tell you about another day).

So Monday night around 6:30 we walked the few blocks to Holy Family for English Mass. Except the Mass was not in English, it was in French with a little Arabic thrown in for good measure. Now the benefit of all of this was that the chants were done in Latin and I knew many of those so I could sing along. But the rest of the service was pretty much a blur. My high school and college level French is mostly limited ordering in restaurants and asking, “Ou est la W.C.?” (A useful phrase to know in every language!)

After it was over, Stephen, a fellow teacher and seminarian in Rome, said, “This just proves my idea that nothing here is ever planned here.” He may be right. In fact he probably is right. But there’s something good about living in a place where we have to let go of expectations and plans and just take each moment as it comes . . . some good, some bad, some confusing, some simply indecipherable.

My prayer these days is to let go of the expectations and plans that usually rule my life and instead wait to see what each new moment will bring and to give thanks for the grace that is so often contained in those moments.

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