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Last week Maui finalized its .

The plan covers so much ground over so many years that it’s impossible to imagine that the plan will work.

And that’s ok.

That’s not a criticism of the plan itself. It’s a reminder about the natural limits of planning. A plan is not a final product. It’s a beginning of a journey that wanders in directions that are often disappointing, surprising and possibly even inspirational. And maybe not. You just never know.

Speaking of imagining, a plan like Maui’s needs to capture people’s imagination in order to give them hope and keep them involved.

At the same time, though, that’s kind of a precarious hope because the plan will move from being the guide, to being a rough guide, to possibly becoming no guide at all.

A plan’s sustainability doesn’t simply depend on its administration. It also depends on emotions, especially how people will react when the plan needs to be modified as it inevitably will.

With all the blood, sweat and tears — that’s another name for community participation — that went into developing a document that will turn out flawed, people could become cynical, discouraged, apathetic, disillusioned or just plain angry.

Let’s take a closer look at why this could happen and some ways to prevent it. One way involves Pope Francis. The other is about nasty bathrooms at Kailua Beach Park.

Why Man Plans And God Laughs

Before a student may write a Ph.D. dissertation she has to submit a dissertation proposal — a plan, really, for what is to be accomplished and how.

It’s a rite of passage, but, as a professor friend of mine told her graduate seminar, as soon as you walk out the door with the proposal in hand, that document becomes out of date.  

That’s not because the plan itself was bad. It’s because the future is, well, the future.

According to Jewish lore, man plans, God laughs. And, as social science explains, individuals don’t act alone, and the future is always contingent on things outside of their control.

Human action constantly changes because our social world and circumstances change all the time.  

A plan is basically linear and straightforward. Our real lives, however, don’t work like that. 

The Maui plan describes itself as a “road map” and a “snapshot” in time that allows itself to be modified as unanticipated things happen. That’s to reassure that the plan is flexible enough to adjust. 

But the ability to accept this uncertainty varies according to what’s involved.

Think of a Google map that lays out your vacation road trip. Looks great when you start the ignition — with all that info, those icons, the reassuring just-on-time-robot voice guide. Nice beginning, but pretty much a theoretical document because things happen that change your route.

Five miles into a 2,000 mile car trip to California, my grandma discovered she had forgotten her false teeth. If you travel with kids, I need say no more.

Mistaken hotel reservations, a surprising site along the way, the dashboard map instructions go on the fritz.

So, your plans change. Big deal. Things worked out OK. It’s just a road trip. 

The Lahaina road map, however, is so different. Consider what Lahaina has already faced. Since the fire — the loss, trauma and then the amount of effort people there have already put into the Maui plan. They are still feeling the trauma of loss and destruction while at the same time having to gear up emotionally to participate in developing a post-restoration that will require more participation, time, energy and anxiety.

Imagine how many times changes of plans might happen over the next five, ten, or even one year to actions and circumstances involving the Lahaina plan.

So many things could happen. The timelines for short-, medium- and long-range completions are estimates, calculated guesses. How could they be anything else. 

The amount of coordination the plan requires is enormous and not discussed in detail because who knows what might come up down the road.

So, how do the people who have suffered so much trauma and loss and already worked so hard to overcome it maintain? How do they sustain when the Lahaina restoration process road map is simply a well-meaning but unpredictable guide to the awesome journey lying ahead?

Through hope, , but it is particularly active and militant sort of hope.

Hope, he said, is a summons “not to tarry, to be kept back by our old habits, or to wallow in mediocrity and laziness.”

The amount of coordination the plan requires is enormous and not discussed in detail because who knows what might come up down the road.

Hope is the driver, the catalyst that makes us upset when things are wrong and, most significantly, drives the courage needed to change them.

Keeping hope alive is a discipline. It’s pushing yourself when you are pessimistic — walking on air against your better judgment, as the poet Seamus Heaney put it.

Hope generates persistence, which is precisely what people in Lahaina are going to need dealing with the bureaucracies and procedures necessary to keep recovery moving forward.

Hope makes it easier to develop the skills necessary to make things happen.

Like this: the Kailua Beach Park bathrooms have no soap. The soap dispensers are gone. People have complained, but to no avail

This could be another example of what drives people crazy about government, same old story.

Except there are a few small wrinkles that make this story different. First of all, the Kailua Neighborhood Board member who first complained was persistent about it. Then, the Kailua Neighborhood Board passed a resolution asking for soap in all park bathrooms.

At first, the parks people did nothing, but they were at least responsive. They said that there are no soap dispensers because vandals destroy them. Another reason was that the soap made the floor dangerously slippery.

You may think those explanations are evasive and weasel-like, but in the pantheon of bureaucratic responses those were at least responsive.

Then, after more discussion, the city has agreed to pilot the use of dispensers that are supposed to be more vandal proof.

This satisfied the neighborhood board for now, but it planned to continue to monitor. The board member was cautiously optimistic but planned to trust a little and verify a lot.

The Kailua bathroom issue is a small thing. It’s relevant, though, because making a plan like Lahaina’s work will constantly involve small things.  What makes the plan daunting is not just its enormous scope but the small, unpredictable pieces — nuts and bolts stuff — that will come up along the way. 

“Be patient, persistent, hopeful and militant. Have hope and work hard.” 

That needs to be Lahainians’ New Year’s resolution.

Whether they like it or not.