In these first two weeks of 2026, I’ve spent more than my share of time thinking about the calendar.
Maybe you, too, start each new year with a bit of a sense that you have a blank slate, a fresh opportunity to clarify priorities and to organize your time in meaningful ways. Part of this, for me, was starting a new, un-dated weekly planner with loose-leaf pages that seem to be more effectively supporting my loose system of plans, notes and reminders.
Is this a process that challenges you like it does me? I mentioned to a clergy friend recently that I had spent time that morning working on my calendar. My friend looked at me, mystified. “Working on your calendar?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
I had to explain that I meant getting clear on what I had scheduled for the week, what needed to be done for what meetings, what priorities I wanted to be clear about, and what needed to be carried forward from prior weeks or, I’m sad to say, months. Of course I have a calendar, but to turn that into action for today, or for this week: there’s some effort involved in that!
So I do try to make room for this effort, on a more or less weekly basis, in more or less detail depending on any number of variables. It was rather a shock to realize she didn’t.
Do you?
My entry into 2026 has necessarily included working around my husband’s bi-weekly cancer treatments, which have for eight months made it hard to make plans in general. Not knowing where things will stand, we aren’t really making plans—except around the biweekly schedule of chemotherapy that begins on Thursday and then continues for 46 hours, until Saturday morning, with an at-home chemo pump.
In recent months, Dan has been experiencing 3-5 bad days, starting on those Thursdays, with slow improvement until Tuesday or Wednesday the week after chemo when he begins to feel like himself. (Or at least like the present version of himself.)
So for months we’ve been scheduling things we want to do, and people he or we want to spend time with, around that two-week cycle. It’s a pattern that has generally worked. The bad days are nasty. But in between, it’s not terrible.
We had to shift his schedule as 2026 began, because his treatment day would have been January 1, New Year’s Day. So we had a three-week stretch between treatments, which was rather a joy with a longer-than-usual time of Dan feeling good.
Then, what would have been his first treatment of the year, last Thursday, got cancelled due to an infection in his salivary gland. We fit in extra medical visits last week and planned toward chemo that would have been today—and would have meant that the few plans we have made (including some of my scheduling here at the church!)—would now become exactly during his bad chemo days.
But we didn’t worry about doing any major rescheduling because we figured he might not be able to proceed with chemo this week, either. Which turned out to be true. Even though the swelling from Dan’s infection is reduced and the rather severe pain has subsided with antibiotics, the oncologist wants to hold off until this infection is resolved. So, there’s a scan early next week, and another round of blood draws and doctor visits, and…well…you see the pattern.
The thing is, what we’re dealing with—in a somewhat planned way—is not that different than what many of us—probably most of us—will experience at some point during 2026. In the last two weeks I’ve talked to several folks whose plans have changed because of a medical diagnosis. Or a visit to the ER—or maybe several. Or a change in what had been thought to be a stable or longer-term situation. And suddenly they’re doctoring, or preparing for tests, or surgery, or worse—in ways that mess with all their plans!
Not to mention the conversations I’ve had with people who had planned trips to the Caribbean this winter, or Scandinavia, later this year—who feel like these plans are suddenly iffy due to our government’s actions and rhetoric over these starting days of 2026. And the others for whom the ICE operations in Minneapolis have disrupted plans, and school schedules, and travels, and more.
There are a lot of reasons our efforts to map out the year are often…uprooted. You’ve probably heard that old proverb, “We make plans, and God laughs.”
The Biblical book of James says it this way:
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4.13-15 (NRSVue))
All of which is true. We can’t know.
And, still, it matters that we make plans. To not plan is to miss out on opportunities, and time with people we care about, that would enrich our lives! To not plan is to act like there’s nothing more we need to know or see or do, in a world that’s full of wonders. And it’s to miss out on making room for what we’re called to do, what we’re able to do, in a world that desperately needs our love, our compassion, our integrity, the relationship and witness that characterizes our faith.
So, right now I’m looking at my calendar and kinda rolling my eyes, not knowing what will have to change once we figure out Dan’s chemo schedule. And even then, we both know we’re only “figuring it out” for some limited stretch of time, because this course of treatment is uncertain, and only God knows the disruptions that are coming.
And still I’m glad to look at the canvas of the coming year, and the work we’re prioritizing here at the church (more on that in a future week), and the handful of personal and family events and gatherings I have dared to put on my calendar.
Not to mention the granddaughter we’re expecting in May. She’s not on the calendar yet!
Some things are so clear they don’t need to be.
Happy calendaring, my friends. I look forward to the ways our respective calendars will intersect—for the glory of God!—in the months and years ahead.
**IN THAT CONNECTION, HERE’S A SAVE-THE-DATE: AUGUST 30, 2026. Pause right now, pull out your calendar, get to August and mark on August 30, starting at 3 pm, you have a prior engagement. I’ll share more THIS Sunday morning–and in our CW Current e-newsletter next week!!**
