All the Small Crosses

 

The trees have been groomed these last two days courtesy of the City of West Hollywood.  This is lovely. There will be fewer hard falling fronds to dodge.

But the process was unmerciful as it combined with several other events in my living area.

Let me elaborate in my lament.

Last year, our condo redid half the building roof.  It was the only way to begin the too long put off work--which was needed even when my father lived in this apartment but minimize the already pretty steep assessment required of the homeowners. The other half had to be done, and the Board took a vote to do it now, before what they said would be a winter's El Nino. (We can only hope for that would bring the rain of which we are in dire need in California..)  For at least two days, cars would have to absent themselves from the garage so that the big truck of the roofers could be put in a spot for the removal and dumping of the old tar covering.

Meanwhile, for about the last month, a new building has been going up a few doors away, the concrete and other sundry trucks making an obstacle course amid the pounding of the ground and the yelling of the workers and the honking of the horns of distressed drivers. Meanwhile, the City decided that it was time to trim the high palm trees in the block, forbidding day parking on much of the street onto which our cars had been banished. Is that something like a hat trick in hockey?

I may be retired, but I have a variety of projects and activities that sometimes cause me a bit of stress.  I allowed myself, for example to take the lead on something for which there is turning out to be little consensus and even less approval and I see the handwriting on the wall that I am to be the bad guy, despite my intense best efforts.

So, when, yesterday, I woke up, uncharacteristically early, to thundering feet across my apartment ceiling (the thundering caused a glass cover on one of our common area lights to drop and shatter), and loud pulling and scraping of tools, combined with the thrilling sound of the as loud buzzing of tree trimming, and the usual sounds of trucks pounding through for the new building nobody in the block wanted that was forced upon the.citizenry, I was nearly beside myself with the need to escape what is usually my shoebox of solitude (it isn't big enough to be a fortress). 

While I was dressing for escape  to, as it happens, the dysfunction of my parish office where I volunteer, a friend called for advice on a subject of which I have little experience . I looked for some spot in my apartment where there was not pounding or scraping or buzzing, while I worried about getting my car out before the gate was blocked. I tried to be kind and responsive while desire to pull out my hair was overtaking me.

I am fortunate truth to tell. These are small crosses to bear. And yet, isn't it interesting that I fail to be grateful for the fact that, thus far, and I pray for the future, I am not faced with the panoply of hardships which beset friends and so much of my fellow men?  More than that I am an angry mass of loud complaint and raging woes to me!  At such moments, I find that the thing I should most do is the last thing I can imagine doing, praying. Perhaps it is the lack of a place of quiet. The disconnect within is disquieting particularly as I claim to be a member of a faith that posits the joining of suffering with the God who saved by suffering Himself.

I am not likely to change overnight and become sanguine with all the little crosses of my days.  But, as I sit here on my terrace, the orange of the sky backdrop to the darkening trees of a night to begin, and the blessed quiet of a work day ended--the buzzing and pounding is at end for the evening at least--I take in a deep cleansing breath and finally thank the Lord, whom I follow so poorly, for the beauty and peace of this moment.