Peeves of the Day and A "Conversation" with God

The "conversation" probably occurred before the peeves. I suppose, in a way, the emotional impact of those peevish moments means that I did not learn enough from my interaction with Him. Had I better absorbed the lesson, the things which followed would have rolled off my back, as if I had a touch of the saint imprinted upon me.

I'll start with the things that annoyed me, and track back to the Lord's maybe revelation to me in hopes that I will act upon His Touch.

I call in my prescriptions. The idea is that by doing so, you relieve the staff from having you stand in line to submit them, and ultimately get your meds quicker and without fuss and frustration. Now my pharmacy has been taken over by a different corporation from the one with which I had heretofore been familiar, and, of late, the call in system has not meaningfully reduced frustration or increased convenience and expedience. I called in yesterday but did not arrive until evening today. There was a line. Things were not going well for other customers. I requested mine. Having written my name, the pharmacist aide still could not locate it in the alphabetical cubby holes. I tried to tell her she was in the wrong locale, but she was persistent in her reluctance to take the advice of the person who knew her name best. When she finally did retrieve, it was not with all of them. She looked at me and said, "It hasn't been processed." She did not wish or expect further conversation and offered no alternatives. "I don't understand" I said aiming at calm though my irritation was cooking. "When did you submit it?" "Yesterday, by the express telephone line." She still offered no solution. "I thought that if I called it in, there would be no problem." She told me that sometimes the machinery was not accurate. She still offered no solution. I had called it in because that is both the preferable and allegedly the most effective means, but I would end up doing precisely that which the process was created to avoid, wait, and stand in line to pick it up. Again. They'd process it in about 10 or 15 minutes.

All right, cut it out, Djinn, it's not that long. I went to a favorite gourmet supermarket next door to find something for tonight. It was more crowded than I had ever seen it in the nighttime. As I waited on the long line to check out my few items, I saw a little girl pick off a squeeze container of sun block. She flipped the cap and her nose went all too close to the opening for a sniff. Once. Twice. Three times. She closed it and set it back among the multiple other containers. I was suddenly preoccupied by the idea that at some point in my shopping history I had taken one in a line of creamy, dreamy products that had likely not only been handled by another, but graced by the touch of a naturally unsanitary nose to its open tip. Has a study ever been conducted on the frequency of such events? IKKKK.

There was a third thing, but now I cannot remember it. Good. Perhaps it has been superseded by the glorious moment in which I was driving along a surface street from downtown LA. I shut off my radio because I just wanted to talk to God. I have heard that prayer really is a form of talking, although ideally it should include, or be primarily, an opportunity to praise Him and to, well, yes, express one's worship of Him. I was chatting with him about how again I had failed to be kind in one way or another at the workplace and how often I fail in this and so much else. I said something about how likely my prayer was generally more complaint than directed at Him. I was doing all the talking, but it wasn't entirely my fault, because I could not, literally, hear Him, let alone listen. I mean, He isn't the usual conversation partner. Usually I can look into the eyes of the one to whom I speak. I might not. But I can. There was the glimmer of the question that if I cannot hear Him, how do I know He is there? I wasn't really thinking it, but maybe I was sort of thinking that it would be nice if there was something to signal there were two of us in the conversation. The sky had been gray all day. But then I looked at the upper horizon and saw something I have rarely, except in photographs--you know, breaking through a cumbersome, curly overcast multiple long and wide rays of sun, golden strokes. I AM here.